As well as the descendants of Russian noble families, who documented and irrefutably proved their undoubted belonging to the Russian nobility.

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Pavel Perets on the murder of ministers Bogolepov and Sipyagin

Klim Zhukov about the birth of the revolution: the victory and the formation of socialism

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I wholeheartedly welcome you! Pavel Yuryich, good afternoon. Hello. I want to brag - look what I have. What the fuck is this? This, of course, is not about Ozzy Osbourne, about whom you spoke, this is a book from a pre-revolutionary edition, it was presented to me on excursions, one of my sightseers and spectators. Unfortunately, I do not remember his name, but I hasten to thank him - this is an absolutely priceless gift, these are the memoirs of Comrade Gershuni, it is called "From the Recent Past", in my opinion. This is one of the main terrorists, the first head of the militant organization of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, the second was Boris Savinkov, Yevno Azef, of course, towered above all this, and I don’t know if we will have time to read a number of things from this wonderful book today, but according to at least what we are going to talk about it today is absolutely certain. And there is... Are you drying up there already? “And government agents, ruthless, corrupt, crafty, weave nets around their victim. There are no limits to their inventions, their criminal ingenuity, where the question is how to break the steadfastness and courage of the revolutionary. Well, in general, naturally ... You noticed that I emphasized this, right? ... there is no limit to the KGB abomination! The book is filled with just absolutely amazing pathos, he is, in fact, a very good stylist, well, that is. publicist. "All around is quiet and deserted, as in the head of a minister." He writes about ... accordingly, when he was received in Kyiv and brought directly to the station. No, he is fine, everything is there, but we will not start with him. Let me immediately show his portrait, now you will look through, a man who... He has a unique fate in general, and he possessed such actually hypnotic ... some kind of hypnotic properties, about which I will directly read the memoirs of Mr. Martynov, who in later became the head of the Moscow security department. But we will not start with this, and in general we will not even start with a terrorist attack. We'll start with the 1884 university charter. Before 1884, there was a certain kind of autonomy in the universities. Well, first of all, there were no uniforms. I showed you the paintings of the artist Yaroshenko “Student” and “Student”: the student is all like that in a hat, with a beard, wrapped in such a plaid, a student walks in such a lambskin hat, short-haired, in a scarf. A scarf, a big scarf - it was such a ... sign of a subculture. Students could influence the choice of the rector, students could influence the composition of professors. The students had a certain amount of self-government, let's say they had mutual benefit funds that they organized, they had ... they could organize their own kitchen, i.e. canteen and control it. Well, in general, in short, such a certain set of rights that they valued very much and which, on the one hand, had a favorable effect on their freedom, but a completely unfavorable effect on educational process . And most importantly, the government, especially after 1881, found out that the main revolutionary terrorist forces come from the students, and this is an eternal problem, i.e., on the one hand, society needs to be educated, and when you start to educate, it begins to radicalize, and what to do with it, in my opinion, has not been figured out so far, to be honest. And you also need to understand, I constantly talk about this: a student then and now - now we have a student, this, I don’t know, the song of the Hands Up group and something like that, at that time a student - this was already a certain achievement of yours on the social ladder, because you graduate from a higher educational institution, which could be counted on the fingers throughout the Russian Empire, mainly in large cities - and life opens up before you, a professional road opens up before you, you definitely won’t die of hunger, turn on your brains - so in general you will reach heights. Profitable houses could have engineers, doctors could have, lawyers could have. An engineer, imagine, has a profitable house, for example, i.e. everything, life grew together, was a success. In 1884, the government decided to finish this, and among the innovations was, for example, the mandatory wearing of a uniform, and wearing a uniform according to a certain pattern - you not only have to put on an overcoat, you must always be buttoned up, etc. Further, all university rectors were appointed from above - well, it’s about the same as now with our governors, and there certain changes were made to the educational process, which I will not touch on, because they are not so important for our story, but more importantly - at universities guards were brought in. Each university introduced such a Cerberus, it was nicknamed "pedel" - it was such a student's slang. These pedals were supposed to make sure that all these laws, adopted in 1884, were implemented. And when, especially in Soviet times, the era of Alexander the Third was studied, this university charter just figured in the framework of these very counter-reforms, the so-called, that Alexander the Third undertook. In fact, this statute had its positive aspects, which, again, we were not told about, but the students, of course, took this with hostility. Nevertheless, as we know, in the era of Alexander III, compared to what was under Alexander II, and compared to what would begin under Nicholas II, there was a relative calm. I talked about the loudest assassination attempt - about Lenin's older brother, and it was the only such high-profile trial that sounded then. And all the revolutionary forces were scattered, they worked out ... well, that is. they tried to understand where they should go: the Marxist ideology began to take shape, the people's ideology began to change ... the so-called. the populists began to form into the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, which represented ... then it did not exist yet, but they had already begun to form in different cities, and it is characteristic that, for example, looking ahead, Boris Savinkov, who became the head of the militant organization, began as a Marxist , and in general, in fact, in the same “Life of Klim Samgin” comes several times - “Well, a Marxist, right?” Those. this is such a certain tribute to fashion, Marxism - it was extremely fashionable then. And at the moment when this charter was adopted, this man, whose name is Nikolai Pavlovich Bogolepov, is the future Minister of Education, now he would be called, respectively, the Minister of Education. He ... such a standard career, not all the children of clergymen went to the revolution - for example, his father was a district warden, but his grandfather was a priest, he was born in some deep province - in Serpukhov, in my opinion, in the end he entered Moscow University, he was at the Faculty of Law, in modern terms, the department of law, and he graduated quite successfully, and defended his doctoral dissertation in 1881, and was elected just an ordinary professor in Roman law, in which he was considered a great specialist . And he was the rector of the university, just the first stage of his rectorship was at the moment when this university charter was adopted. Bogolepov... put yourself in the place of a person who is in charge of Moscow University, one of the central higher educational institutions of the country: on the one hand, you have to do what comes down to you from above, on the other hand, you understand on the spot what it will cause a certain rejection among most students - and how do you behave in this situation? Bogolepov clearly introduced these laws into life, and he, in fact, the very process of this very process of managing this uncontrollable mass, an attempt to make students start studying, and not do God knows what, he did not like it, therefore in fact, his first term was from 1883 to 1887, and he left there, but then, again, for lack of a more worthy candidate, he again became rector from 1891 to 1893. And then he does ... then his career grows, in 1895 he receives an appointment - a trustee of the Moscow educational district, and this is already 11 provinces of Central Russia, and, accordingly, all educational establishments that are in these provinces fall under his control. Well, in 1898, at the peak of his career, he takes the post of Minister of Education. And I must say that ... I read in some memoirs that Bogolepov is like in the case of Witte and so on, he just didn’t burn with the desire to occupy this position, because he perfectly understood the degree of responsibility, probably already felt that this seething begins to occur in the country, as you say, shit, etc. And not only. Sorry, I'll interrupt: what was the point? I’ll jump back: as far as I can remember from childhood, I went to school - we always had a school uniform, there was never this slovenliness: wear whatever. Small children wore one type of uniform, older children wore another, and older children wore a third. It seems to me that at all times it was like this: in vocational schools - belts with buckles, caps, students - they also had some kind of uniform. Then everyone went randomly or was there a uniform ...? Until 1884, everything ... well, in fact, unfortunately, unlike Europe, we do not have such a great history of students - our first university was actually organized back in ... it bears the name of Lomonosov, although in fact, logically, it should bear the name of Shuvalov, who organized it, but just Shuvalov is Elizabeth's lover and generally a damned nobleman, and Lomonosov, like, ours, such from the people, although he is also such, you know, ... from the people - dad he was not a poor man. But this is a separate song. This, respectively, is the middle of the 18th century, and nothing has passed. The fact is that during the time of Nicholas the First, the screws were very tightly wrapped, but Alexander the Second let it all go, it was in the era of Alexander the Second that the most classic story is wearing beards, i.e. finally allowed to wear beards. And that's why they are all ... why is Zhelyabov all so bearded, you understand, although at first as a student ... You mean - citizens? Not the military, not the police - were citizens allowed? Citizens, yes. And that was impossible, right? Not citizens, meaning - the nobles, because the nobles were forbidden, and we had a class - nobles, merchants, philistines. Merchants just could and even had to wear beards, they had the opposite situation - they first wore beards, and then their children of all kinds - the Tretyakovs, Mamontovs and others ... They started to shave, right? ... yes, and others, they began to shave, i.e. it's all right there. It is so always and everywhere. I'll give you an example, I'm sorry: the Soviet Army, this is training where you are taught for six months, and then sent. In training there are young soldiers who will be sent in six months, but there is a permanent staff. All young soldiers go to new form , and local grandfathers diligently wash their tunics so that they are whitish, and they are radically different from this. Then you come to the unit, and there it’s the other way around - all the young people go in washed out and tattered, and the “grandfathers” go only in the new one, you know, so that it sparkles. So everywhere always. Well, naturally: women with curly hair dream of straightening it, and women with straight hair dream of curling it. Curly. But now schools are again trying to get uniforms... well, we don't need uniforms at first... Well, firstly, even at universities - here we have a Mining, for example, university, there is a uniform, and people, some students are in uniform. I don’t know how it is now, whether it is strictly punished or not if you come out of shape, but at least they try to enter. Here at school, for example: at school I understand, i.e. children of radically different material levels, one has such clothes, the other has such clothes ... Well, excuse me, I will interrupt you, but school uniforms did not appear in the USSR immediately either, they appeared after the war. Before the war, if you look, for example, at the photographs of my grandmother, they are actually, in general, not dressed in uniform. Those. the regulated form only appeared, you can correct me, but as far as I remember, after the war, even under Stalin, and before that, in fact, again, there were no clear regulations on the form. Again, it's about money. Here children come to school - one has such well-being in the family, the other has such. Well, it's like we come to work - you're on a Rolls-Royce, and I'm on a scooter, and in general, this causes laughter for many, let's say. So, the uniform at school, as I understand it, in order to eliminate this, so that it is not so conspicuous, although it will rush anyway: one has some kind of Huawei, and the other has an iPhone 10 - it’s still visible, who how much money. Well, what was it for the students - to bring them to discipline or some other goals? No, I think that's just the first. In fact, the meaning of any form, well, I was here with my friend who ... he lives with his wife, they have two children, they are both such freelance designers, and he really has a working day at night, from 12 to 4 at night , and he is such a life hack ... It fits quickly - in 4 hours in this totalitarian Russia. He has such a life hack, for example - he says: I work in shoes, so I really put on ... some kind of clutch is better - run for a kettle, everyone has their own. First of all, the form is needed so that you are not distracted by some extraneous things: everyone sits in the same way, everything is clear to everyone, etc. This is the first, and secondly, the form is immediately the first association we have with what - with the army. That is, again, and the army is discipline, subordination, these are certain regulations, so I think that the first reason, of course, is this - to somehow regulate people immediately, so that they think more about to learn them, and they thought less about which one to throw a scarf on his left shoulder or throw a scarf on his right shoulder, he has this hat for him this way or that. Although, again, I told you, they still had their own stories: there were these white-lining men who hemmed student overcoats with white silk - this is just the “golden youth”, majors, daddy’s sons, who were absolutely pro-monarchy and constantly fought with these revolutionary citizens. I’ll come back: in the Soviet Army everyone is the same, but the “grandfather of Russian aviation” can be seen from a kilometer away - he’s just not dressed like that. Well, i.e. on a number of very subtle details that distinguish it. Of course. Well, actually, it is always and everywhere. Well, in general, Bogolepov was a child of his time, for example, he believed that the place of a woman in the kitchen was natural. Nevertheless, under him ... he could not ignore this trend with the need for women's education - under him, in Moscow, for example, higher courses for women were opened, which, God forbid, already existed in St. Petersburg. He started a reform of primary education there, in general, he tried to take some actions, but, of course, some serious, such directly radical measures - it was not for him. And all this resulted in the fact that on July 29, 1899, the so-called. temporary rules. What they were designed for - I’ll read it straight out: “For impudent behavior, for gross disobedience to superiors, for preparing riots or producing them en masse within the walls of institutions and outside them,” because everyone got tired, that in the end, no matter what you do, it’s all the same these things happen, and for this these soldiers were given ... Students? ... students were sent to the soldiers. Well, actually ... Ie. The military enlistment office scared already then, right? Yes. You can imagine what the reaction was to this: these rules were immediately called "Bogolepov's", but despite the fact that they were issued in 1899, they were not applied until 1901. And in 1901, Bogolepov finally applied them. The first who "thundered" were 183 students of Kyiv University. I will tell you separately about Kiev University later - I re-read Novitsky's memoirs, this is the main Kiev gendarme. This man, whom we will talk about today, fell under this shop - this is Stepan Balmashev, he was just then studying at Kiev University, and in 1902 he already committed the first Socialist-Revolutionary Act, under which they signed. We will talk about the murder of Bogolepov today, it was still a pre-SR act. This means that 183 students of Kyiv University and 28 students of St. Petersburg University were given to the soldiers. What the authorities achieved in this way: firstly, the mood at that time was quite liberal, after all, even sometimes among those who sent these students to the soldiers. Everyone understood that this was a rough measure, to put it mildly, a few understood that by doing so they were spreading propaganda among the troops, they were simply planting it, but only a few understood this, and in fact they quickly realized this measure. There are, again, descriptions of how ... the conditions were different for everyone: someone got into military units and was in such a rather privileged position, he began to conduct his usual activities there to communicate with soldiers, somehow tune. Someone ended up in military units, really in a batch, they didn’t make any descent, but after they rattled off their term, they had the right to go back to the university later. Recover? To recover, while if you had just been expelled from the university before, you could no longer re-enter anywhere. Therefore, no matter how ironic it sounds, this law was more liberal than the previous ones - yes, you get into the soldiers, but you still have the opportunity to continue later, well, that is. probably counted on the fact that you are like this ... They will bring you to your senses. Yes, they will bring you to feelings, you will come to these feelings and then you will return, finally you will start studying. And what it led to - it led ... I have such a portrait - this is Pyotr Karpovich, this is the first hero of our today's story. This is the man who committed the first terrorist attack in Russia in the 20th century. Who was Pyotr Karpovich? When he shot Bogolepov, of course, especially his wife decided that he was a damned Jew, because he still had a surname, but in fact he was of the Orthodox faith. This murder took place on the present day of St. Valentine, February 14, 1901, where - I will say later, but nevertheless ... He is from the Chernigov province, this Pyotr Karpovich, and there is such an article written by Yuri Lvunin, doctor historical sciences , and it contains such data that I have already told about some kind of kinship on the tangent of Sophia Perovskaya to the imperial family, but there it really is traced, and there it is true, it can be traced there, but here is what is written here: “According to the testimony his half-sister L.V. Moskvicheva, he is the illegitimate son of the owner of the farm Voronov-Guta A.Ya. Saveliev, who in turn was born from the natural daughter of Catherine II and Prince A.A. Bezborodko, that is, Karpovich, is the great-grandson of Catherine II and the grandson of A.A. Bezborodko ”- well, there, as it were, in general, questions arise about the daughter of Catherine II and Bezborodko, but based on the data of his half-sister, he writes about this. Nevertheless, of course, the plot is such - for the Life News channel, that here he is also another descendant of the royal family. Savelyev never legitimized his illegitimate son, and therefore he received the surname Karpovich. He studied at the gymnasium in modern Belarus, in Gomel. “In Gomel,” recalled Moskvicheva (this is his half-sister - P.P.), “he saw poverty, lack of rights of the Jewish people, which made him forever an ardent defender of this nation.” But, as I said, Karpovich himself had nothing to do with the Jews. And in 1885 he entered Moscow University, in 1895, sorry. How a normal student spends time at the university - he, of course, immediately scores on his studies ... From session to session, students live happily ... Yes, and he begins to engage in all student movements that existed then, for example, he joins the Union council of united communities. I have already told, using the example of the assassination attempt on my elder brother Lenin, that these compatriots, it is clear on what basis they were formed, but they were just one of those boilers where all this revolutionary porridge was brewed very often. He plunges into all illegal literature, and the protest method of the students of that time was very interesting - in the first session he did not appear for the exams. Is this a protest? It's a protest, so it's a protest! Two questions: first, how long did they serve as soldiers, for how many years were they called up? I don’t remember exactly, I’ll clarify, but not for long, I think that not more than a year or two, in fact, just with the expectation that they then have to continue their studies, i.e. it's not some hell of a time. This is one, and the second: and so I did not come to take the exam, and what - will they expel, will they not expel? Meaning? They could leave for the second year - this was practiced at universities, this is not the present time, there really were sophomores, they could leave for the second year. This is generally a very good question - the logic of these people, i.e. you ... no, everything is clear, interesting - all these movements, again, this is a kind of youth fashion, subculture, but your ultimate goal is to get a diploma, in fact. Nevertheless, he did not come to this session, and the very next year he asked to be transferred to the Faculty of Medicine, but was refused and was just left for the second year because he did not pass the session - then it was. In November of that year, he became one of the instigators of student riots. I will also tell you how these student riots in Moscow took place, Gerasimov has wonderful memories on this topic, what happened to them, etc. Well, in the end, what - he was arrested and expelled from the university, i.e. The first run ended like this. He was sent to his parents, lived there on his farm, was engaged in all kinds of rural work, and in 1898 he filed a petition in the name, I want to note, Bogolepova, the minister personally considered these petitions in order to enter the medical faculty of Yuriev University, this is the current the city of Tartu. At the same time, before that, he first applied to the trustees of various educational districts, and they rejected him because he was unreliable, Bogolepov granted his request, said: well, study, my dear. Accordingly, he came to the territory of the current country of Estonia, and well ... and everything is the same there, i.e. Why study when you can not study? Well, actually, the second one took off ... There are so many interesting things around, right? Yes, there are so many interesting things around - I flew out of the university for the second time, now in the city of Tartu. Those. I'm telling you about the revolutionary path of this man. But then he got lucky - he inherited a house that he sold, and he spent this money on a trip to Europe and decided to continue his education in Germany. Perhaps because he ended up in Germany, and he paid for it, where he finally began to study. He attended lectures at the University of Berlin. Naturally, in Germany everything was much easier with illegal literature, and everything else, and it was there, in Germany, that he learned from the media, from the press about these first temporary rules, and then about the return of just Kiev and St. Petersburg students at the university. What Karpovich decides: Karpovich decides to kill Bogolepov - again, we observe a rather interesting logical chain in people's heads - he acquires a revolver there and goes to Russia from us. He stopped on Kazanskaya Street, which was then called Meshchanskaya, and made an appointment with the minister. Again, I told you how Vera Zasulich attempted to assassinate the governor of St. Petersburg Trepov - you could easily make an appointment with the mayor, the minister, from the street. Basically, people signed up to submit some kind of petition in person and accompany it with some kind of verbal contact, let's call it that way. In my opinion, this says exactly one thing - that there were vanishingly few people who wanted to apply, since the reception was not organized there, back and forth, well, the acceptance of applications at least, since you can meet in person. And also, from my point of view, this says something else - that there was no need for personal appeals to the tsar, so to speak, that a lot of issues were quite simply resolved on the ground, there was no need to organize a “Direct Line” with the president in order to repaired the plumbing. Those. something wasn't working right there. Well, yes. Moreover, this time he concocted a petition with a request to enroll him now in St. Petersburg University. Stubborn! Yes, but that was just an excuse. Where the Ministry of Education was located at that moment: here is Petersburg, Nevsky Prospekt, you are standing and looking at the Alexandrinsky Theater, in front of it is a monument to Catherine II ... "Katkin's Garden". "Katkin's garden", yes. For those who don't know, homosexuals gathered there under the Soviet regime. Yes, there was such a thing. Homosexuals! Homosexuals - please be... Yes! Excuse me... And in general, it's time for you and Dementy to finally demonstrate to the whole world... We are now burning down the office. ...that you follow the trend, etc. You go around this theater on the right side, and in front of you opens the street of the architect Karl Rossi, which ... This is the Hare Grove - that's how it was with us. Yes, yes, yes, 22-22-220, the most harmonious street in the world, blah blah blah, so classical... Architect Shot - we also know, yes. Before, but this particular Rossi. On the right side, there is even a sign hanging there now that the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Education, in our way, was located here. It dragged on, this ministry occupied almost the entire right wing on the right side, because on the left side there was already the Vaganovskoe ballet school. So, accordingly, it was here from this square that he came to see him on the reception day, and according to the testimony of a witness at the court who was on duty there, when Karpovich entered, he thought: “What an unfortunate young man, what a nervous and sick man! Although he was calm, he was pale, his hands were shaking, and twitches were noticeable on his face. Well, in general, you can understand a person - you are going to commit a murder in public, you perfectly understand that, most likely, you will not have any chances to escape, i.e. you are actually sacrificing yourself. You get nervous here. I got nervous, of course. Bogolepov ... well, how - the minister arrives, he begins to bypass all the petitioners, they give him back, and “Bogolepov, going up to Karpovich's neighbor, listened to his request to open a real school in Chernigov. In response, he said: “Give us a certificate from wealthier landowners and nobles that they will send their children to school ... We do not want to open schools for raznochintsy.” Well, in general, as Karpovich later stated in court, it was this phrase that finally convinced him that it was necessary to shoot. After talking with a neighbor, Bogolepov went up to Karpovich himself, took a petition from him, went on, and it was at that moment that he fired a shot at him. Where did you shoot - in front, behind, in the head, in the torso? He, in my opinion, stuck him in the abdominal cavity, Bogolepov staggered, fell, but remained alive. Karpovich - this, by the way, is the behavior of many terrorists later, I will tell you - he did not run anywhere, calmly said that "the Moor did his job", do not be afraid, I will not leave. Bogolepov was brought home to him, and Karpovich was imprisoned. And here came such a moment of timelessness, because while Bogolepov was alive, they did not understand why Karpovich was tried - for injuring or for premeditated murder. At the same time, Bogolepov's wound turned out to be very severe and painful; At first, of course, the newspapers wrote about his condition, they visited him, even Nicholas II came to visit him, they prescribed the best doctors for him, but I already said that this, of course, was already the beginning of the 20th century, but nevertheless, everything they still did not know how to defeat sepsis, etc., i.e. died from blood poisoning, from festering, etc. Those. he shot once in the stomach? Yes, and March 2... Despite the terrorist nature, control shot by the left ear... They just grabbed him quickly. He fired, they immediately rushed at him ... Ie. you stand in a room where there are a lot of people, you understand, and you shoot at the minister - in principle, you really don’t have many opportunities, especially since he is not a professional shooter. But at least this one hit, sorry for the cynicism, unlike any ... And he killed. ... yes, Solovyov, who fired 5 times, did not hit once from 5 meters. On March 2, 1901, as a result, Bogolepov died in the most severe torments in general. Well, on March 17, in the district court, this is the same court that was located on the site of the present Big House, Liteiny 4, I showed you his photographs, a trial was held in the case of Karpovich. He was tried ... In theory, he was supposed to be tried by a military court, but he was actually tried in a judicial chamber with the participation of class representatives, because the mood was like that, because even the future "hero" Japanese war Kuropatkin, when he was seeing these students off, he personally shook hands with each of them and said that I would definitely get you back from there. Accompanied where - to the war? Or for demobilization? In the soldiers, here are these students who were given to the soldiers. Well, now a man killed a minister, that's what sentence he should be given, well, according to the logic of things, in tsarist bloody Russia? I don’t know, in my opinion, regardless of the minister - you’re a murderer, for murder ... Only the Lord God gives life, and every bastard takes it away. Probably, life should be answered for this - this is my opinion. However, he was left with his life, he was sentenced to 20 years of hard labor, deprivation of all rights and conditions, and was sent to Shlisselburg - 1901. In 1906, he was released, well, in the sense, from Shlisselburg he was already sent into exile in the Trans-Baikal Akatuy, and a year later he went to the settlement. Well, as you understand, when a person went to the settlement, on the way at one of the stages, when they stopped in the city where the railway station was, he asked the guards to go shopping, took a ticket, got on the train and was like that. Yes ... Right there it is, like him - what did you want? Well, purely primitive: what did you want? You wanted to kill this man, did you have intent? Yes, he wanted to kill, and he killed. How is it possible, and here it’s been 20 years, and what does it have to do with transfers from here to there, a settlement, escapes? Some kind of madness! Everything is done by hand. When I talk about Gershuni, it will be even more interesting there. That's it - I went abroad, joined the militant organization of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party there, but, unfortunately, all the main terrorist attacks had already been carried out then, which I will talk about, and then a terrible thing happened - Azef was exposed, and, by the way, in In 1908, even there, I will tell you later, there was a plan to assassinate Nicholas II, and he took part in it. Well, when Azef was exposed, Karpovich, like many, in fact, was disappointed in this matter, moved away from such active political activity, even broke with socialism in general, and lived there until 1917, until the news of the February Revolution came, and, accordingly, at the end of March, on one of the ships, he, with another warm company of political emigrants, loaded up for this floating ship and went to Russia. Well, what can I say: somewhere between England in the roadstead, this steamer was sunk by a German submarine. Deftly! Yes. Some escaped, took advantage of the ship's boats, but Karpovich did not escape, Karpovich ended his days in the depths of the sea. And I must say that this terrorist attack... Well, again, look, there were... let's talk sensibly with you: these measures were taken - temporary rules, here a terrorist attack is being committed, protesting primarily against these rules . How should the government behave in this case? If the government is strong, then it will not give up, but this government, frightened by this act, immediately canceled these temporary rules, which clearly showed that the topic is working. Much can be achieved. The theme works, yes, i.e. this is not just a terrorist attack, in fact, this is the meaning of terrorism - i.e. you commit some kind of murders, some kind of explosions, violence, etc., and the government makes concessions, and the longer you put pressure on it, the more beautiful you will achieve. And it, in fact, began like this, because the Mariinsky Palace, here I have a booklet, I’ll tell you a little later - the Mariinsky Palace was built, I’ll show you directly for whom - for Maria Nikolaevna, the eldest daughter of Nicholas the First, for her family. This is generally an apartment, a private apartment, and now the government of St. Petersburg is sitting there. Well, a house, so to speak. House, yes. You see, they knew how to live then. Here is this Stepan Balmashev, here I have two portraits of him: he is like this and there is this one - Stepan Balmashev was the son of the populist Valeryan Balmashev, respectively, an apple from an apple tree. And just the same, in 1900, he entered Kiev University, and then you already know the scheme from the example of Karpovich - no matter what you do, just not to study. He participated in all student unrest and just thundered under this bench. And then he was still arrested and sent into exile, and it was precisely because of his complete unreliability that he was denied admission to any educational institutions, and, accordingly, from Kharkov, where he was serving a link with his parents, he returned to Kiev, and then he moved to St. Petersburg, and on April 2, 1902, in the form of an officer, he drove up to the Mariinsky Palace in a cab with a package, allegedly from Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, who was then the governor of Moscow, said that I had a package for the Minister of the Interior. Dmitry Sipyagin was then the Minister of Internal Affairs, here is his portrait, I will show another portrait later and tell you about him. What the guards do - the guards lead him to Dmitry Sipyagin, directly to the Minister of the Interior, he was in the form of an adjutant. Moreover, when he arrived, the minister was not there, and the adjutant wing said that he had not yet arrived, to which Balmashev said: “Well, I'll wait,” and sat down to wait for him. Here he is sitting, waiting - the minister arrives, he approaches him with this package, gives it, well, and immediately shoots him, drops almost the entire clip into this minister. Another thing! Yes, this one already died an hour later literally. Balmashev was immediately accepted, I must say that in parallel with this murder, the murder of the hero of our past story, Pobedonostsev, was also to take place, and in Chernov’s memoirs it is written that yes, it was supposed to be a double terrorist attack, it was not committed ... the second terrorist attack was not committed for the simple reason, I already said that they sent a telegram and mixed up two letters in the surname, but in Gershuni's memoirs it is written that if Balmashev was such a young brave officer, then it is not known who he was, but Pobedonostsev should have been killed by which - an old man in a general's uniform, again, unfortunately, who and what is unknown. And I would like to read it to you, I have such a collection of Okhrana, I would like to read you Martynov’s memoirs, he was just then in St. Petersburg at the gendarme department, which was located on Tverskaya Street - we also have Tverskaya Street Tauride garden. Here he writes that “in the spring of 1902, the assassination of the Minister of the Interior Sipyagin followed. Immediately after the murder, the department received orders from the Police Department ... The conduct of this inquiry was entrusted to the gendarmerie general A.I. Ivanov, and the assistant prosecutor of the St. Petersburg Court of Justice, M.I. Trusevich is, by the way, the future director of the police department. “I had to take on some supporting role and be present during the first interrogation, during the interrogation of the murderer, Stepan Balmashev. I don’t remember exactly why, but at the moment the arrested Balmashev was brought to the department, General Ivanov (who was supposed to be in charge of this - P.P.) was not present, and in order to comply with the formalities, M.I. Trusevich called me into his office...” Here he describes Trusevich as such an investigator on Dostoevsky – that is, this Porfiry is famous in Crime and Punishment, and now he writes further: “I remember very well the appearance of Balmashev in M.I. Trusevich. To my extreme amazement, in the office, accompanied by two gendarmerie non-commissioned officers and captain Grishin, entered ... an officer, tall, healthy, reddish blond, with reddish, unclean skin on his face. It's not visible here, in fact, because the photos are like that, but here he is so tall, reddish, with reddish unkind skin on his face. “This officer was in the so-called general adjutant uniform, but it was put on carelessly, the officer’s coat was unbuttoned and wrinkled. This was Stepan Balmashev, who, as you know, committed the murder of Minister Sipyagin in the vestibule of the Mariinsky Palace ... For me, then still a young gendarmerie officer, not experienced in the various subtleties of investigative "diplomacy" and imbued with the natural in my position of an officer, and especially a gendarme , psychology, it was an extraordinary sight, ”- i.e. he has just started his activity, and here it is already. “... Trusevich, with some rustic cordiality in his voice, invited Balmashev to sit down at the table at which the interrogation was being conducted, and, opening a voluminous and very elegant gold cigarette case, very kindly offered him a cigarette, which Balmashev used. The very manner of the conversation begun and carried out by Trusevich shocked me: “How is it? I thought. “Before us is the murderer of a minister, and with this murderer a person occupying a prominent position in the government apparatus is having an almost friendly conversation!” Yes, and the very bringing of Balmashev in an officer's uniform to our department, albeit in a closed carriage, indicated, in my opinion, some alleged confusion of the authorities or the fact that there was no one “at the top” who would have ordered Balmashev to change clothes in his ordinary dress. Accordingly, we even know where he was brought - he was brought to Tverskaya Street, there was a trial of Balmashev. They just didn’t stand on ceremony with Balmashev - he was sentenced to death and sent to Shlisselburg, because executions were then carried out there, and Gershuni in his ... who was also in Shlisselburg then, and Karpovich was there - they are all there in a friendly company gathered, but I’ll tell you about this separately, Gershuni just wrote in his memoirs that when Karpovich was brought in ... oh, sorry, when Bogolepov was brought in, how the execution took place: they woke him up, he first got up and said: “What, already? » - and went back to sleep. He was awakened again, he again turned on the other side and again tried to sleep, but he was finally put on his feet. He came out briskly, where they hung him straight up. What a strong mind! Actually, he doesn't have one. And now this one ... And then the question is: were they warned there - like, get ready, will they hang you tomorrow morning? No, they never knew exactly when they were... For example, the same Gershuni was waiting for the death penalty for many days, i.e. he thought he would definitely be hanged. He was pardoned, i.e. they left him life, but this is a topic for a separate conversation, which, again, speaks in general about the mores of that era. Balmashev was hanged, and this terrorist act of 1902 became ... now it was officially a terrorist attack by the Socialist-Revolutionaries, they recognized it. A controversy broke out - the fact is that ... like Savinkov, like Balmashev - they really ... it was only the formation of all these ideologies, they ... Balmashev was noticed in Marxist circles, and therefore the social The Democrats insisted that this was not a terrorist attack, that Balmashev simply stood up for the desecrated honor of all students, and the Socialist-Revolutionaries said: no, this is our guy. Wait a minute! Yes, wait a minute, this is our guy. And accordingly, this is what it is ... 1902, the Mariinsky Palace - this is the beginning of such an official SR terrorist activity. One important point must be said here: the fact is that now ... well, in Soviet times, I will tell you about the formation of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party next time, because there you will need to talk about a very interesting character named Mikhail Gots - this main sponsor. Well, I already said: there was a triumvirate - Viktor Chernov, an ideological theorist, Yevno Azef, head of the military organization, and Mikhail Gots, the main sponsor. The Socialist Revolutionary Party was very popular among the peasants, because they had their own agrarian reform, program, to be exact. And now, when I look at what is on the Internet in general, who, what, what, I see that they are trying to say that, well, yes, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, of course, committed terrorist attacks, but then they moved away from them (of course, when Azef was exposed), and then they tried to engage in exclusively peaceful activities. But it is extremely important to understand that without these terrorist attacks, they would not have become so famous and popular in Russia if they hadn’t happened, because it was the most ... well, as they say now, newsbreak that thundered everywhere. Well, imagine for a second, who is our Minister of the Interior now? We don't remember. The people should not know about a good ruler. Yes. Well, just imagine: a man drives up to the Kremlin in broad daylight, comes to the reception. They say to him: "But there is no minister yet." He says, "I'll wait." With weapon! With weapons, sit down. The Minister of the Interior arrives, he shoots him, they grab him. Well, i.e. for us it is now absolutely nonsense, but the context of the situation at that time was just that. And indeed, the government was confused, because the era of Alexander the Third relaxed society, everyone decided that this nightmare of the People's Will was in the past, we entered into new era - but no! And here she is. And so it began. A few words about this same Mariinsky Palace: how, in general, being built for the daughter of Nicholas II, suddenly ended up in the possession of the city. He built it... First of all, appreciate the paternal care: dad immediately thought that he should give his daughter an appropriate gift. His daughter in her youth looked like this - this, by the way, is a portrait of the notorious Karl Bryullov. Pretty! Yes, she... would be an even prettier portrait. This palace was built by this man - A.I. Stackenschneider, who built palaces for all the children of Nicholas II ... oh, Nicholas the First, excuse me: the palace of Nikolai Nikolayevich Sr. on Blagoveshchenskaya Square (Labor Square), Mikhail Nikolayevich’s palace on Palace Embankment, then, that means, in Peterhof for Olga Nikolaevna, for Maria Nikolaevna, i.e. The guy has had a great career. Initially, this territory looked like this, pay attention: i.e. here it stands - this is the forerunner of St. Isaac's Cathedral in general, it is also Rinaldiev's Cathedral. You see - such a moat around the Admiralty, the Admiralty was a real fortress, and this very palace does not exist yet. By the way, many do not know, but on the Neva side in front of the Admiralty, 3 houses were built almost illegally, for bribes that close it. Yes, this is a department, this is a separate story. I have a wonderful Soviet book from the Tourists in St. Petersburg series, and it says very well about it. Indeed, before the Admiralty was such a letter "P", because ships were built inside there. Docks. Docks. They were built until the era of Nicholas the First, who, firstly, was tired of the knocking of axes under his windows, and secondly, well, fire safety, and therefore they were transferred there lower. The territory has been vacated - the question is: how to dispose of this territory? The fact is that Andrey Zakharov, who built this complex, he, of course, thought through, i.e. when you sailed along the Neva, you had such a very beautiful prospect. It is double, in fact, i.e. there, this letter “P” is double, there are two more rows of buildings, but they were given for development, and there, indeed, now ... You conduct steamboat excursions, no? Listen, well, I was offered, a long time ago - not yet. Here is Egor Yakovlev, I know, he has mastered this process. The city looks like from the water! From the water, the city looks completely different, and in fact, of course, it must be viewed from the water, because it is from the water that it makes the most amazing impression. We have one of the... maybe even the widest part of the river here, which you will not find anywhere in Europe, there, no matter where - in Budapest, in Paris. There are rivers there, but they are still narrower, but here it is our combination of this flat panorama and this width of the Neva, it is, of course ... And the speed of the current is also - you can’t swim there by hand. Well, well, let's go back to the palace - and what, they piled it up here, right? Right here, over the bridge. Here this bridge is so small so far, now it is like this, the Blue Bridge - it is one of the widest bridges in Europe. In general, earlier in the place where now ... I was generally lost, yes. Yes, this is very difficult. Here is the Bronze Horseman, here is the Neva. You see how things used to be different from what we used to. Here, in general, there used to be a cadet school, where Lermontov studied and where he wrote his obscene poems. And not only, right? Yes. Ripe talent. Ripe talent. Here is Maria Nikolaevna, this is the fashion of that time, look: a very pretty girl. Pretty, yes. “Spaniel ears” in that fashion, and I always really like to show these two portraits - this is the Vogue magazine of the 19th century: this is Maria Nikolaevna, you see, also “spaniel ears”, but this is some Pushkin, but here she is already Lanskaya. And pay attention: they are dressed in absolutely the same fashion, i.e. hats, feathers, hairstyles - everything just fits together. Pushkin is in the sense of Natalia? Yes, Natalya Goncharova, but in her second marriage she was Lanskoy. They say there was an incredible beauty, I read? She was ... she is here, in general, completely, i.e. she was an incredible beauty, Pushkin, in general, was not a fool's lip. Maria - accordingly, therefore the palace is called Mariinsky, yes, for a second, she settled there, and there was a problem with the royal children, which was that ... especially with daughters, that they, as a rule, were married off and sent to Europe, and Nicholas the First loved his daughter very much, and they had just such a sacred connection. There are a lot of memories, for example, how during one of the receptions ... no one could stand the look of Nicholas the First, he looked at his daughter, she looked at him, he did not look away, she also did not look away, and here they are in such peepers began to play. Pure basilisk. Yes, and in the end, Nicholas the First could not stand it. ABOUT! Nicholas the First could not stand it - she had a daddy's character, in fact. And here's the problem: what to do? We should, in fact, attach a daughter, but I don’t want to send her away. The Duke of Leuchtenberg has arrived, and this is how he looks. The Duke of Leuchtenberg is the son of Eugene Beauharnais, and Eugene Beauharnais is the son, respectively, sorry, for a second, Napoleon's wife. Well, he was the stepson, however, of Napoleon. This again tells us that at that time there was, you know, such as we have, I don’t know, the enemy side - and that’s it, here they are our enemies, there, I don’t know, fascist Germany, etc. Well, it would be strange if Stalin's son married Hitler's daughter, for example. Yes, well, it’s kind of like that ... Not even that strange, but in general ... Yes, such, of course, is a very rough comparison, but nevertheless ... It seemed to me that it had such a root meaning: we are relatives around here, and this will eliminate a lot of military conflicts that can be resolved at the family level by meeting, talking, back and forth. Yaroslavna, Queen of France, was sent precisely for this. Montferrand, the architect of St. Isaac's Cathedral, fought in the Napoleonic troops, received the Order of the Legion of Honor - nothing, he came to Russia, became practically the court architect of Nicholas II. Bulgarin, a famous publicist, also fought, he generally had Polish roots there - he arrived, began to publish. Those. there was not yet this, you understand, a rigid patriotic distinction at that time. And this Leuchtenberg one... This does not mean that then people were smarter, and everything was arranged better, it just wasn't like that. Certainly. Well, what is the Duchy of Leuchtenberg, you can imagine. In general, Germany of that time is such a patchwork quilt, there are a lot of them - these Württembergs, Hesse-Darmstadts, ..., etc., etc. They say to him: so... They somehow got into a twirl, they tell him: so stay... The boy is with us... Yes, you will be our king. Well, he thought and stayed, they got married. While the Mariinsky Palace was being built, they were given a room in the Winter Palace, and this is a very significant moment - that the Duke of Leuchtenberg, unlike our Grand Dukes, who did the most - it was military and drill training, he took up science, and applied science - he began build, make experiments in the field of electroforming. Electroplating is a chocolate hare, can you imagine, yes, or there ... I worked in electroplating, I know what it is. Those. this is the manufacture of very thin metal through a chemical reaction, and this came in handy, because St. Isaac's Cathedral was just being built opposite, and there are figures in the corners, just imagine - to put the Bronze Horseman there. The Bronze Horseman is really solid. Here, engineer Jacobi, at the suggestion of the Duke of Leuchtenberg, invented ... They got excited - whole ... No, such things are made - as an expert - by the knockout method, i.e. when separate parts are knocked out, then they are welded in various ways. He's empty inside, the Bronze Horseman. The Bronze Horseman is not empty, an empty monument to Nicholas the First. All empty, I assure you, even the Statue of Liberty is made up of parts, and electroplating, in theory, I only worked with small forms, we basically had the Last Supper, it is so ... it is like a high relief, i.e. there, some parts stuck out, rubber was poured on it, a mold was made, and then metal was deposited there, and from this it turned out, well, not like embossing, but like a cast thing, very thin, small details are visible there, and all that. Listen, as far as I know... The thing is extremely useful, let's not get into the jungle, the thing is extremely useful, for certain artistic solutions it is simply irreplaceable. Well, the fact is that it was invented here in Russia. Didn't know this. Yes, Jacobi... well, as it is written in our Wikipedia that he is Russian, in the English Wikipedia it is written that he is German-Jewish. What a nightmare! This fundamentally changes everything. The attitude towards his work must change. Yes, and at the suggestion of this Duke of Leuchtenberg, it all started. Well, i.e. did the person do the work? A man was engaged in business, for the first time in world history, the electroforming method was used specifically for the manufacture of sculptures to decorate an architectural monument, i.e. all these angels, the bas-reliefs that stood on St. Isaac's Cathedral, were made using the electroforming method, and that's exactly what Jacobi was doing. He headed the mining business, he, accordingly, traveled there ... He organized a laboratory for himself in the winter palace - can you imagine? While everyone there was drinking tea and coffee and thinking about who to stir up with there, the person, respectively, is German, what can you do? Stolz. Yes, Stoltz is a very good comparison. And he went, caught a cold and died, died young, he was not yet 40 years old. And I must say that Maria Nikolaevna, even during his lifetime, got involved with comrade Stroganov, here he is. This Stroganov is the son of Alexander Stroganov and Natalya Kochubey, to whom Pushkin dedicated "Poltava": "Kochubey is rich and glorious, its meadows are boundless ...", "To you - but the voice of the dark muse ..." In general, this is it. And they already had an affair during their lifetime, and there were several children, and if they agreed about the elder that, most likely, yes, it was from him, then now the younger ones - there were very serious suspicions that they were from him. When he died, and here is the tragedy, you know, the tragedy royal family , and not only royal, in general, any royal family - you cannot marry or marry the one you love if he is not of that rank, and the rank should be the very best. Well, you can, but you'll lose everything. Yes, absolutely right - you can, but you will lose everything, the absolute truth. And Maria Nikolaevna, they eventually got married secretly in the house church of this very Mariinsky Palace, only a few people knew about it, including her brother, the future Alexander II, and while Nicholas the First lived, it was all kept secret, they managed to keep it a secret , but when he died, they opened after a while, and it was a shock to the empress dowager, who said: "God, I thought I had lost my husband, but now I have lost my daughter." What a conspiracy, listen! Yes, but at the same time, memories of this Stroganov remained, there are two memories - Obolensky and Sologub, Sologub is a writer, and Obolensky is one of the leaders of just liberal reforms under the Minister of War Milyutin. So, they wrote that ... I especially like Obolensky - that this Stroganov was such a very tough reveler, in fact, and in the year of his marriage to Maria Nikolaevna, he especially began to behave inappropriately, you see, in order to avert suspicion that he might be her husband - it's like with the catechism of the revolutionary Nechaev, that a revolutionary, in order to avert suspicion, must fall as low as possible. And Sologub describes an absolutely amazing episode, how he, being somewhere in our German Baltic, where the local barons, knowing that he was such a fan of this business, decided to teach him a lesson. There were 17 of them there, and they said: "Now let's have a glass of champagne with each of us?" Being sure that he would collapse after drinking 17 glasses of champagne. He drank, as the cucumber remained, he said: “Now let's make my bet?” They say: "Let's go." - "Now let's each drink 17 bottles of champagne?" Naturally, they all lay down after the third, and he got up and drove off. Sons, damn it! Yes, and she, accordingly, had several children, about whom I will not talk in detail now, I will literally just briefly say: here is Nikolai Leuchtenbergsky - this is her son, he was ... he stirred up with Mrs. Akinfieva, nee Annenkova. .. Akinfeeva... ...for whom no less than our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chancellor Gorchakov, was whipping, moreover, Gorchakov was born in 1798, and she was born in 1840, and the fact is that Minister Gorchakov. .. he had ... our ministry then was located in the left wing of the General Staff Building, where the Hermitage Impressionists now hang, there was also his state-owned apartment, and in the right wing there was just the Directorate of these mining affairs. In the left wing there was a polyclinic of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate, as I remember now. Then ... no, it's generally the whole building was under the warriors. Now the left part... well, not now, there, a few years ago, the left part was chopped off and given to the Hermitage so that they could hang all those Matisses, Van Goghs and Impressionists there. And there, by the way, there is, if you go further, there is an exposition dedicated specifically to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and there was also this Gorchakov's state-owned apartment. Gorchakov was a man who studied with Pushkin, he was the last survivor of the first legendary lyceum graduation. He whipped after her, Tyutchev whipped after her, who wrote absolutely amazing poems that “under her, old age grew younger, and experience became a student, she twirled a diplomatic ball as she wanted.” Haha! Bastard! Well, naturally, Nikolai Leuchtenberg fell under her charm, and accordingly, Maria Nikolaevna, by the way, I have a portrait of her at an older age, Maria Nikolaevna, who herself was not without sin, was completely horrified that her dear son can marry in an inappropriate way, tried to prevent this, but ... No one knows who, right? Yes, no one knows who, but ... Here she is already in an older state, here is her husband, the Duke of Leuchtenberg. Interestingly, by the way - even then there was a photograph, why didn’t they take a picture? Well, yes, there were still mostly portraits. Well, it must have been tougher. Yes, and in fact, Gorchakov, when he realized that he overdid it with this Akinfieva, he just tried to marry them, i.e. there was a whole such intrigue, and he, in general, saved himself. Then she had a son, this one here - George of Leuchtenberg, who was married twice, his second wife was one of the Montenegrin sisters, who were called "Montenegrin spiders". Witte called Stana and Militsa, Nikolai Nikolayevich Jr. was married to one of them, and to the other this Duke of Leuchtenberg, whom Alexander the Third forcibly married her, and it was through these Montenegrin princesses that Rasputin somehow got into the courtyard . And she had another wonderful son - Eugene Leuchtenberg, this one just lit up not like a child. Nothing in common in the faces. Well, yes, yes, you understand, Eugene Leuchtenberg. And, you see, these are already bearded after all. Eugene Leuchtenberg, who had a mistress Zinka Skobelev, the sister of the White General Skobelev. I’m here, in short, I’m sorry - I was literally here yesterday in Moscow, I had 2 hours of free time, I had a meeting, and I went, drove to the museum in the lane that departs from Staraya Basmannaya, and there is a manor, and in her exposition is an exhibition dedicated to the suppliers of the court of His Imperial Majesty, merchants. And there, of course, all the Shustov bottles and ... Lord, I forgot my last name, that is, Shustov is a producer of alcohol, but there was a surname who directly made these bottles, and there really is a bottle in the shape of Skobelev ... I swear to you, I photographed - that is, a real vodka bottle in the form of Skobelev, and more... I read about it: when it was Pushkin's anniversary in 1899, Shustov released Pushkin cognac, I thought that this was also a story - no, there really is a bottle in the form of Pushkin. Pushkin is so... Pours, right? ...he has a cork in his head. I took a picture of it all, well, that is. Absolutely in general, every time you are surprised. And this Zinka Beauharnais, she also later made a successful career for herself, received the title of Beauharnais too, she was the mistress of another Grand Duke - Alexei Alexandrovich, this is Prince Tsushima, "7 pounds of august meat", who did everything well so that we have our fleet ... our armor was not as armored as it should be. And he was married to her, to this Zinka Skobeleva, and she was the mistress of Alexei Alexandrovich, and the three of them traveled around Europe like that, inducing fear and horror, and so on. And according to some stories, Alexey Alexandrovich sometimes, he was so huge, well, I’m this film with Mel Gibson, where in America he is filmed there, Judy Foster, there is a card game, I don’t remember ... Lord, what is it called? There is a completely insane Russian prince there... "Maverick"? "Maverick". The mad Russian prince is just the prototype of Alexei Alexandrovich. He really went to America, hunted buffalo, he was such a strong man - he threw this Eugene of Leuchtenbergsky a couple of times out of the window of his palace on Moika 122, where the Palace of Music is now. In general, there are such high relations. Well, I just mean that this is the offspring, and this is a normal story. The Russian Museum has become a museum in the same way - because the descendants of Elena Pavlovna and Mikhail Pavlovich have outlived their usefulness. At some point, they just became ... they had accumulated so many debts - they were forced to sell this Mariinsky Palace, why the State Council settled there first - this is the famous painting that we talked about, Repin hung there, and now there located directly the government of St. Petersburg. By the way, a very interesting point: it seems to me that in general there should be a state program for opening graves, extracting bones, biological material from them and establishing motherhood, paternity, kinship, so that it is clear who, from whom, where and how. Now it's quietly moving towards living people when there are all sorts of DNA tests. Do you remember, there at one time a bullet walked around, that when they started doing this on a massive scale in Britain, they found out that about 30% of the children were from the wrong fathers. Well, firstly, this requires money, in fact, secondly, it needs ... someone should do this, and in general, the brightest example, and then there is the ROC ... the brightest an example is the remains of Nicholas II and his family, which are still not recognized by the Church. Well, they have their own internal antics, because at first they said one thing, and now they have to say something else, and somehow the infallibility of statements may suffer - what did you carry then, but now it turned out to be wrong? And to finish our topic - the Mariinsky Palace, this one, pay attention, this is from the roof of St. Isaac's Cathedral ... From the colonnade, probably? Yes, from the colonnade. At some point, it was also painted, like the Winter Palace, like the General Staff, just one ... Red, right? Well, he was like that, he was painted with red lead, and the Mariinsky Palace also did not escape this fate. And I must say that the Bristol Hotel was located nearby, where an accidental explosion was committed, where the terrorist Schweitzer died, but we will talk about this in one of the next issues, and next time we will dedicate our issue to this wonderful person - Grigory Gershuni and the formation of the militant organization of the party of socialist revolutionaries and quietly move on to the murder of V.K. Plehve is the next Minister of the Interior, whom they killed just a couple of years later, and this was the very first such terrorist act that really thundered, thundering throughout Russia. But this is the German embassy, ​​no? Look, I'll explain to you... There, they say, there used to be bars with swastikas. This is the German embassy, ​​this is the former, in its place later, according to the project of Peter Behrens, a modern building was built, there was a sculpture on top, which was thrown off during the German pogrom and dragged to the Moika. In 1914 - many do not know - German buildings were smashed in our country. And on this side is the Angleterre Hotel. Angleterre and Astoria yes. I recently realized with horror that "Angleterre" is "England" in French. Well, "terra" is "land" because, "the land of the Angles." Citizen Yesenin hanged himself there, and in the holy 90s, I remember, there 3 people were shot dead on the threshold - such a nix was! It's a pity, then there were no phones, and it was not customary to take pictures - excellent pictures would be from the saints of the 90s. Well, in general, here, dear friends, look how fun the 20th century began in the Russian Empire - they banged the Minister of Education in 1901, in 1902 - the Minister of the Interior, and literally then, what we will talk about in our next issues, they will bang the second minister of internal affairs and the uncle of the tsar - the governor of Moscow, right in the Kremlin, right in the Kremlin. More on that next time. Stunned! Thank you, Pavel Yurievich. We continue to dive into the history of our native country. And that's all for today. See you again. Do not forget to go on excursions - links under the video.

Create an organization

The organization was created on May 22, 1906 during the first Russian Nobility Congress held on May 22-28, 1906 in St. Petersburg in the house of Count A. A. Bobrinsky, at which 133 noblemen represented 29 out of 37 noble assemblies of the European provinces of Russia (subsequently to the Council all other provincial noble assemblies joined). At the same Congress, the Charter of the Council was adopted (approved on June 29, 1906 by the Minister of the Interior), and its first composition was elected. The second edition of the Charter was adopted at the III Congress in 1907 and approved by the Minister of the Interior on May 5, 1909.

Goals and objectives

According to the first paragraph of the Charter, "Congresses of authorized Provincial Noble Assemblies aim to unite Noble societies, rally the nobility into one whole to discuss and implement issues of national interest, as well as class interests." The organization defended the inviolability of autocracy and landownership, encouraged the government to more actively combat the revolutionary movement, insisted on strengthening criminal liability for the "agrarian revolutionary crimes" of the peasants, on strengthening censorship, and "improving" the school by introducing "religious and moral principles."

Organizational structure

congresses

The supreme governing body of the organization was the Congress of Commissioners of the Provincial Noble Assemblies, which consisted of the provincial marshals of the nobility, from the authorized representatives elected by the provincial noble assemblies for every 3 years, and members of the State Council elected from the nobility (paragraph 2 of the Charter). Over the 11 years of the organization's existence, 12 of its congresses were held: the 1st and 2nd in May and November 1906, the subsequent ones annually in February-March. The last XII Congress took place in November 1916.

Between congresses, the Permanent Council of the United Nobility, elected at the congress for 3 years, operated, consisting of the chairman, two of his comrades (deputies) and 10 (then 12) members. The Council was elected at the 1st, 5th, 8th and 9th congresses. The charter of the organization defined the competence of the Permanent Council as the executive body of the congresses, but according to the second edition of the Charter, the Permanent Council received greater administrative rights, including the right to address the government on its own behalf "in cases of urgency."

PSODOR and the agrarian question

PSODOR saw the resolution of the agrarian issue in Russia in the destruction of communal land ownership, the transition to the farm system, the resolute implementation of the resettlement policy, the purchase of land by peasants through the intermediary of the Peasants' Bank at prices favorable to the landowners. Since the 7th Congress (February 1911) PSODOR draws great attention on the economic issues of the development of the landlord economy, on propaganda as a model of the Prussian Junker economy, makes attempts to create a noble economic organization - the "Union of Landowners".

PSODOR during World War I

During the First World War, the positions of PSODOR weakened somewhat. Some of the organization's leaders supported the opposition-minded bourgeoisie ("Progressive Bloc"), and the other - the court entourage and G. E. Rasputin.

After February 1917

At a meeting of the Permanent Council on March 9, 1917, a resolution was adopted, which recognized the Provisional Government. PSODORE took steps to convene as soon as possible

All-Russian public organization"Union of the descendants of the Russian nobility -Russian Noble Assembly "(abbreviated name - Russian Noble Assembly,RDS) is a corporate public organization that unites persons belonging to the Russian nobility, as well as descendants of Russian noble families, who have documented and irrefutably proved their undoubted belonging to the Russian nobility.

RDS was created at the Constituent Assembly in Moscow on May 10, 1990, officially registered by the Ministry of Justice Russian Federation May 17, 1991 under No. 102, re-registered by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation in accordance with the Federal Law of the Russian Federation "On Public Associations" July 15, 1999 under the same No. 102, in accordance with the Federal Law "On State Registration of Legal Entities" On January 28, 2003, the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Taxes and Duties in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities under the main state registration number 1037700077942, the entry on RDS was entered by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation into the departmental register of registered non-profit organizations on May 5, 2006 under the registration number 0012011299, about which, after re-registration of the organization in 2008, the Certificate was issued on 30.09.2008

Activities of the Russian Nobility Assemblydirected to the revival of the greatness of Russia, all the regions included in it, to the preservation of the historical and cultural heritage of the Russian State, for the restoration and continuation of the historical continuity of the state and generations, for the formation of public consciousness on the basis of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, the Faith of the ancestors and the historical traditions of the Russian Statehood, for the establishment of true culture in society, the principles of civic dignity and honor, traditions of faithful service to their Fatherland, respect for Russian history, high morality and spirituality.

The composition of the Russian Nobility Assembly includes about 70 regional branches (regional - provincial - Nobility Assemblies) and representative offices, including, at present, 51 regional Noble Assemblies in the territory of the present Russian Federation, regional Noble Assemblies created in most territories of the historical Russian State - the countries of the Near Abroad and the Baltic States , as well as 3 branches and representative offices in foreign countries, in Australia, Bulgaria and Western America. The total number of RDS is about 9-10 thousand people with family members. An honorary member of the RDS was His Holiness His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II, who died in Bose, representative noble family Ridigerov.

The supreme governing body of the Russian Nobility Assembly is the All-Russian Nobility Congress, convened, as a rule, once every three years. Between Congresses, the highest permanent governing body of the RDS is the Council of the United Nobility, which unites the Leaders or authorized representatives of the majority of regional Nobility Assemblies. During breaks between its meetings, the collective governing body of the RDS is the Small Administrative Council, which includes, in addition to the leaders of the RDS, members of the Council of the United Nobility, who head (supervise) the most important areas of activity of the RDS as a whole.

Heads the Russian Nobility Assembly RDS leader, since April 26, 2014 – Oleg Vyacheslavovich Shcherbachev, who is also the Leader of the Moscow Nobility Assembly. First Vice-Chairman of the RDS - Mr. Alexander Yurievich Korolev-Pereleshin, supervising all external, social and interregional relations, organizational and economic activities, coordinating the activities of the regional Nobility Assemblies and also being the executive secretary of the Council of the United Nobility. Vice-Leaders of the RDS are Messrs. Stanislav Vladimirovich Dumin, approved at the same time as the Herald Master of the RDS, and who is also the Herald Master-Manager of the Herald under the Office of the Head of the Russian Imperial House, and a member of the Heraldic Council under the President of the Russian Federation, and Vladimir Fyodorovich Shukhov, President of the Shukhov Tower Foundation.

The Russian Nobility Assembly is a non-political organization, although he not only reserves the right to speak out, including in the media, on the most important issues in the life of Russia and other states that have historically been part of a single State, but also actively participates in social and civil activities, trying to interact with the Federation Council and the State The Duma of the Federal Assembly of Russia, the Civic Chamber of Russia, participating in a number of "round tables" and in separate hearings in the committees of the State Duma, in a number of hearings and conferences held in the Public Chamber. Actively interacts with many other state bodies and organizations, including presidential and government structures, various ministries, including the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Federal Agency "Rossotrudnichestvo", the Ministry of Culture of Russia, the Russian State Military Historical cultural center under the Government of the Russian Federation, with the administrations of many regions of Russia and the countries of the Near Abroad. The leaders or representatives of many regional Assemblies of Nobility are members of the Public Chambers or Public Councils under the Administration of their republics and regions.

The RDS actively participates and itself organizes conferences, round tables and seminars on topical social and political topics. Yes, for last years RDS together with the all-Russian social movement"For Faith and Fatherland" with considerable success held a number of very serious and significant scientific conferences, which have not only scientific, but also important social and political implications. In March 2007, it was the 1st scientific and practical conference "The Monarchist Idea in the 21st Century", timed to coincide with the 90th anniversary of February Revolution and the forced abdication of the Sovereign Emperor Nicholas II Alexandrovich - sad dates in Russian history marked on March 15, 2007. In May 2009, in the conference hall of the Russian State University of Trade and Economics (RGTEU), the 2nd scientific and practical conference from the same cycle “The Monarchist Idea in the 21st Century” was successfully held. The theme of the conference was "The Role of the Monarchist Idea in the Modern Unity of the Peoples of Historical Russia". On March 4, 2011, exactly on the day of the 150th anniversary of the signing by Sovereign Emperor Alexander II Nikolaevich of the Manifesto "On the most merciful granting to serfs of the rights of the state of free rural inhabitants" in Moscow was held, this time with the participation of the Russian State Technical University, another III-I All-Russian scientific and practical conference of this cycle, dedicated to the anniversary. Conference theme: “Russian experience of reforms. To the 150th anniversary of the Manifesto of Emperor Alexander II on the liberation of the peasants from serfdom. On March 13, 2012, the IV All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference was held in Moscow under the general theme “The Monarchist Idea in the 21st Century”, on the topic: “Russian Imperial Geopolitics: Past and Future. To the 200th Anniversary of the Victory of Russia in the Patriotic War of 1812. Each time, the organizers of the conferences set themselves not only purely historical, scientific and cognitive tasks, but also quite specific ones. practical goals: to show that the monarchical form of government not only has not become obsolete, but vice versa - it is both quite successful in the modern world and promising in the future, which in modern Russia there are enough social and political movements, and politicians, and scientists, and just independently thinking people who stand on such traditionalist positions. In 2007 and 2009 The purpose of the scientific forums was not to assess what happened 90 years ago, but to discuss new approaches adequate to modern times to using the best Russian state traditions and putting the monarchist idea into practice. In 2011, the goal is not only to highlight the Great peasant reform in Russia, its historical significance, but also critically comprehend and compare Russian reforms middle - second half of XIX century, with subsequent reforms in our country, including liberal reforms the end of the 20th - the beginning of the 21st century, which we are witnessing. In 2012, the goal is not only to highlight the history foreign policy Russia, and even more so not only the history associated with the Victory of Russia and the coalition of other countries over Napoleonic France, but also to critically comprehend the features of the external and domestic policy countries in the context of the imperial tasks of the Power, the history and prospects for their implementation in the space of Eurasia and the World.

Politicians, scientists, and the media have shown quite a lot of attention to all these conferences, in which these forums have received a great response.

December 2012, 2013 and 2014 RDS acted as a co-organizer of “round tables” – hearings in the Civic Chamber of Russia, dedicated to summing up the results for the year of interregional memorial events of public and church-public organizations of a patriotic orientation, their interaction and public-state partnership, plans and projects for the next years.

The Russian Nobility Assembly cooperates most closely with the Moscow Patriarchate. RDS was the first public organization in Moscow, in the residence of which a house church was built in honor of the icon of the Mother of God "Derzhavnaya". RDS has good contacts with the Synodal Department for Relations between the Church and Society, with the Department for External Church Relations, with the Synodal Committee for Interaction with the Cossacks, and with many other Synodal departments. The First Vice-Leader of the RDS, A.Yu. Korolev-Pereleshin, is a member of the Council of Orthodox Public Associations under the Synodal Department for Relations between the Church and Society. Each regional Assembly of the Nobility, whether on the territory of modern Russia or the Near Abroad, without fail interacts directly with the leadership of its diocese.

The Russian Nobility Assembly annually actively participates in the activities of the World Russian People's Council. Since 2012, the Leader of the RDS has been a member of the Council of the Cathedral.

RDS participates in most church-public and in many church actions. So, in 2007-2010. RDS annually participated with its own separate stand in the largest church and public events - church and public exhibitions-forums "Orthodox Rus' - on the Day of National Unity", timing its exposition in the corresponding year to church and public historical dates and anniversaries.

Since 2009, together with the rector of the Patriarchal Metochion - the Temple in the name of the Icon of the Mother of God "The Sign", Archpriest Mikhail Gulyaev, the RDS annually acts as the initiator and organizer of November 4, the Day of National Unity, a memorial service for all the victims of the Russian Troubles, revolution and Civil War and Russian people who died in a foreign land. At the invitation of the RDS, members of the RDS and well-known representatives of the Russian Diaspora, descendants of prominent figures of the warring parties, who were once implacable political opponents, and representatives of state and public organizations pray at the services. Held with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill and led by Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, Chairman of the Synodal Department for Relations between the Church and Society, the commemorative events are invariably very successful and receive great public and media resonance. In 2010, together with the same rector of the Patriarchal Compound - the Temple in the name of the Icon of the Mother of God "The Sign" and the Synodal Department for Relations between the Church and Society, the RDS became the organizer of the International Literary Essay Competition for children of school and early university age living in the Russian Federation, near and foreign countries, "The Face of Russia" - essays about outstanding personalities of Russia's past, who made the greatest contribution to the spiritual, cultural, intellectual development Russia, its state power, in the creation of the ideals of goodness, love, peaceful coexistence. The competition was held with the aim of spiritual and patriotic education of the younger generation, identifying gifted students with the blessing of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus'. RDS managed to attract E.I.V. Heir to the Tsesarevich Grand Duke Georgy Mikhailovich. The results of the competition were summed up on November 4, 2010, on the Day of National Unity, together with His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus'.

The Russian Noble Assembly actively interacts and participates in the activities of many congenial organizations: “Societies of descendants of participants Patriotic War 1812", the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, the Moscow Merchant Society, the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments, the Russian Zemstvo Movement, all-Russian public organizations of the Movement "For Faith and Fatherland", "Russian Christian Democratic Perspective", etc., was a co-founder, co-organizer of a number of them. The RDS is a member of the International Nobility Association CIAN, interacts with foreign national noble and traditionalist associations and many other foreign organizations, and is especially active with foreign communities and organizations of Russian compatriots around the world.

The Russian Noble Assembly carries out a large list of scientific and educational,historical-memorial, cultural, humanitarian and educational programs, most of which are timed to coincide with the most important dates and events in Russian history. In accordance with these programs, both in Moscow and in other cities, a large number of historical, scientific, genealogical, heraldic, scientific and practical conferences, seminars, publications of scientific and journalistic works are carried out, public art and historical and journalistic exhibitions are held.

The largest historical and scientific actions in recent years, the All-Russian conferences “Military dynasties of the Fatherland. To the 625th Anniversary of the Victory at the Kulikovo Field and the 60th Anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War” (Kostroma, September 2005), “Results of the Crimean War. To the 150th anniversary of graduation” (Moscow, March 2006), “In the service of the Fatherland. Cultural and educational mission of the Russian nobility. To the 225th anniversary of the provincial Nobility Assemblies in Russia and the 20th anniversary of the Russian Nobility Assembly”, dedicated to the 225th anniversary of the “Charter on the Rights, Liberties and Advantages of the Noble Russian Nobility”, published by Empress Catherine II on April 21, 1785 and the 20th anniversary of the reconstruction RDS in 1990 (Moscow, May 2010), “Nobility and Modernity” (St. Petersburg, June 2011), “Tatar Nobility Assembly. Its history and its development at the present stage in the search for civil unity and interethnic harmony. To the 20th anniversary of the Mejlis of the Tatar Murz” (Ufa, March 2012); "The Romanov dynasty in the history of the Russian state" (Moscow, March 2013); "The Imperial House of Romanov: 400 years in the service of Russia" (Moscow, March 2013), which was attended by the Head of the Russian Imperial House H.I.V. empress Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, "How to resist the falsification of Russian history", together with the Russian State Library (Moscow, October 2013), "110th anniversary of the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905" (St. Petersburg, January 2014), " Crimean War in the memories of the descendants of its participants”, dedicated to the 160th anniversary of the beginning of the First Defense of the City of Russian Glory of Sevastopol (Moscow, October 2014), “The Great War in Documents and Book Funds. Problems of study, description, and publication” in cooperation with the Russian State Library (Moscow, November 2014).

RDS also holds a number of traditional annual historical and genealogical forums, enjoying great fame and authority among specialists. These are traditional international Savyolovsky readings, which are held annually together with the Historical and Genealogical Society in the hall of the State Historical Museum in Moscow. These are the annual Grigorovsky readings held in Kostroma with the leading participation of the Kostroma Noble Assembly together with the Kostroma Historical and Genealogical Society. Finally, for many years the RDS has been holding in Krasnodar, relying on the Noble Assembly of the Kuban, the International Noble Readings, which are very famous both throughout the North Caucasus and in Russia as a whole, in the countries of the Near and some countries of the Far Abroad. In recent years, International Noble Readings have been held with the following topics: 2006 - “Who will lay down his soul for his friends”, dedicated to the 130th anniversary of the beginning of the liberation of the Orthodox population of the Balkans from the Ottoman yoke; 2007 - "Under St. Andrew's faithful banner ...", to the 225th anniversary of the Black Sea Navy of Russia and the 220th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Russian naval commander M.P. Lazarev; 2008 — ““And God’s Grace Came Down…”: The Romanovs and the North Caucasus”, to the 90th anniversary tragic death Holy Royal Passion-Bearers; 2009 - "Under the shadow of St. George", dedicated to the 240th anniversary of the establishment of the military order of the Holy Great Martyr and Victorious George; 2010 — ““Virtue and honor should be the rules for this ...”: the nobility North Caucasus in service Russian Empire”, to the 225th anniversary of the provincial Nobility Assemblies in Russia and the 20th anniversary of the Russian Nobility Assembly; 2011 - "The honor granted to us by God and the Tsar ...", to the 200th anniversary of His Own Imperial Majesty the Convoy; 2012 — “It’s not for nothing that all Russia remembers…”: the era of 1812 and the Russian nobility”, dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the Russian Victory in the Patriotic War of 1812; 2013 - "Reign for glory, for glory to us!", to the 400th anniversary of the accession to the Throne of the Romanov Dynasty; 2014 - "We loved you wholeheartedly, our Holy Russian land ...", to the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War.

At RDS it was created and has been operating since the mid-1990s. RDS Artists Association, which unites both professional artists, members of creative art unions, the Russian Academy of Arts, venerable, recognized masters, and talented amateurs. The largest in recent years artistic Exhibitions, held by the RDS - exhibitions of the Association of Artists of the RDS in the gallery of the Pilgrimage Center of the Moscow Patriarchate in Moscow in February 2007 and in May 2010 (the latter was dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the reconstruction of the RDS); exhibition "Far - close" in the building of the Administration of the President of Russia in the Moscow Kremlin (October-November 2010), dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the Victory and the 20th anniversary of the reconstruction of the RDS; exhibition at the Russian Center for Science and Culture in Austria, Vienna (September 2011), dedicated to the 200th anniversary of Russia's Victory in the Patriotic War of 1812; an exhibition in the main building of the Federation Council - the upper house of the Russian parliament (October 2011), dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the restoration of the RDS and the upcoming 1150th anniversary of the Russian Statehood; exhibition "Glorious year for Russia" in the cultural center of the Academy of Management of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia (November 2012), dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the Victory of Russia in the Patriotic War of 1812; participation of the Association of Artists of the RDS as an official exhibitor in the large exhibition "Unforgettable Time ..." in the Central Moscow Exhibition Hall "Manege" (April 2012), dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the Russian Victory in the Patriotic War of 1812; exhibition "400th anniversary of the Romanov Dynasty" in the Cultural and Social Center of the Department of Transport of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Central Federal District (November 2013); exhibition "In search of beauty" in the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation (March-April 2014), dedicated to the opening of the Year of Culture in Russia and a number of others.

Recently, a new important direction has appeared in the activities of the Association - art photography, thanks to the arrival of several very talented photo artists in the Association. There are also a couple of separate major photo exhibitions. Exhibition "August service to Russia", dedicated to the 55th anniversary of the Head of the Russian Imperial House H.I.V. Empress Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, opened on the day of this anniversary, December 23, 2008 in the gallery of the Pilgrimage Center of the Moscow Patriarchate. The exhibition, held with the blessing of the then Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, presented dozens of photographs telling about the life path of Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna. The exhibition "For Faith and Fatherland", dedicated to the 400th anniversary of the calling to the Russian Throne of the Romanov Dynasty, was held jointly with the Movement "For Faith and Fatherland" in the City Exhibition Hall of Bryansk in April-May 2013. The exposition told about life in exile and about today, members of the Russian Imperial House.

Worth mentioning a few exhibitions creative works of the descendants of Russian nobles and guests of the RDS "Reflection of the Soul", conducted in 2012 and 2013. Their peculiarity was the diversity of the presented works: paintings and graphics, jewelry, installations, embroidery, lacquer miniatures, soft toys. The authors did not seek to impress with their professional skills, the main thing that motivates them to create is the desire to talk about the beauty of the world around them, to show that, despite the long years of oblivion, cruel hard times, the descendants of famous families managed to keep in their souls a craving for beauty, the desire to create, saved traditions inherent in representatives of those strata of society that once, together with the entire Russian people, were the pride of Russia

RDS and its regional Assemblies of Nobility carry out a number of cultural programs: they hold a significant number of concerts, literary and literary-musical salons, etc., or by the efforts of their members, but mainly under their own auspices - attracting professional performers. In 1996, under the guidance of professional ballet dancer Michael Shannon, under the guidance of the professional ballet dancer Michael Shannon, the entreprise ballet and opera "Imperial Theater" was created and successfully performed for several years, performing in St. Petersburg at the Hermitage Theater, in Moscow on the stage of the Ostankino Palace, holding tours in Yekaterinburg, France, Belgium and Slovakia. For a number of years in the late 1990s. in the "Opera House" of the museum-estate complex "Tsaritsyno" the vocal quartet RDS performed under the direction of Irina Khovanskaya. In recent years, the RDS began to actively organize under its auspices professional concert programs on large stages, dedicating them also to the most important dates and events of Russian history: full-scale concerts of the Russian romance, concerts "Three Russian basses" - the program of the authorship of the RDS, concerts of spiritual, folk Cossack songs performed by famous monastery choirs, concerts of the Moscow saxophonists quintet, solo concerts stars of Russian romance and classical opera. Literary and literary-musical salons of the RDS are held quite regularly both in Moscow and by most of the regional Assemblies of the Nobility.

Among the many recent anniversary promotions It is worth mentioning the first International Congress of the Descendants of the Participants of the Patriotic War of 1812, initiated and actually organized and held by the RDS together with the Society of the Descendants of the Participants of the Patriotic War of 1812 in June 2012 in Moscow (formally, the Congress was held under the auspices and funding of the Government of Moscow), at which brought together more than 300 people from all over the world, the second International Congress of the descendants of the participants in the Patriotic War of 1812, held in Paris on November 13-16, 2012, the initiative, organization and participation in the planting of the "Borodino Oak Alley" in the park on Vorobyovy Gory in Moscow in September 2012, as well as holding the Founding Congress of the descendants of the participants in the First World War on July 31, 2014.

Occasionally RDS gives classic balls- a bright, representative, colorful action, unforgettable for anyone who has participated in it at least once. The latest such official balls of the RDS were given at the House of the Russian Diaspora in Moscow on May 16, 2010 in honor of the 20th anniversary of the reconstruction of the RDS and on May 15, 2011, on the eve of the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Victory of Russia in the Patriotic War of 1812, as well as in the premises of the Polyanka complex Art Hall, on Bolshaya Polyanka in the center of Moscow, April 30, 2012, dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the Victory of Russia in the Patriotic War of 1812 and the 20th anniversary of the recognition of the rights and duties of the Head of the Russian Imperial House by Her Imperial Highness the Empress Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna.

Under the RDS in Moscow operates Youth Society. A number of regional Assemblies of Nobility patronize gymnasiums, lyceums and cadet corps in their regions, develop and implement pedagogical programs.

The Russian Nobility Assembly and its regional organizations carry out charitable and patronage activities.

The press organ of the Russian Nobility Assembly- the newspaper "Dvoryansky Vestnik", has been published since 1993 (the pilot issue was published in November 1992), registered in March 1994 as an all-Russian newspaper. RDS in 1994-1999 also published 10 issues of the historical-publicistic and literary-artistic almanac "Nobility Assembly", and in 1998, trial, 2 issues of the magazine about family education "Guverner". Whole line Regional Nobility Assemblies (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Bashkortostan, Samara, Udmurt, etc., as well as the Australian Representation of the RDS) also publish newspapers, almanacs, magazines or bulletins.

Since 2001 Russian Nobility Assembly together with Tsentrpoligraf publishing house carries out a large publishing program "Forgotten and Unknown Russia". More than 80 books in this series have already been published. The purpose of the program is to open undeservedly forgotten pages great history of our Fatherland, to recall the deep spiritual and moral traditions that have always been strong in Russia. According to the results of the competition, held back in 2001 by the Union of Publishers and Distributors of Printed Products of the Russian Federation and the Vitrina magazine, the series was awarded the Golden Grain award among the first ten winners.

And several Catalogs issued by the Association of Artists of the RDS are also a particularly important, due to their visibility, component of the overall publishing activity of the RDS.

It is extremely important for the members of the RDS that the activities of the Russian Nobility Assembly take place under the Highest Patronage of the legitimate Head of the Russian Imperial House, Her Imperial Highness, the Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna. On behalf of the Head of the Russian Imperial House, the RDS facilitates contacts between the Head and Members of the Russian Imperial House and the Chancellery of the Head of the Russian Imperial House with the Hierarchy of the Moscow Patriarchate, Diocesan Administrations, and various administrative structures. In addition, traditionally, at the request of the inviting, hosting Members of the Russian Imperial House (Russian federal representative bodies, the Governments of Moscow and St. Petersburg, regional administrations, governments of some foreign countries), the Russian Nobility Assembly helps the inviting party to establish contacts with the Office registered in Russia Head of the Russian Imperial House, and in a number of cases, on behalf of the Chancellery of the Head of the Russian Imperial House, participates in the coordination and resolution of organizational issues in the preparation of the Highest visits of the Members of the Russian Imperial House to Russia or foreign countries, in the preparation and implementation of actions aimed at integrating the Russian Imperial At home in the life of our Fatherland.

RDS actively interacts with the Chancellery of the Head of the Russian Imperial House and the Heraldry created under the Chancellery.

Legal address of the Russian Nobility Assembly: 109012, Moscow, st. Varvarka, house 14. The current headquarters of the RDS is located at the address: 109028, Moscow, Pokrovsky Boulevard, 8, building 2 A (this is also the postal address).

On October 2, 2010, the 65th anniversary of the Leader of the Russian Nobility Assembly (RDS) His Excellency Prince Grigory Grigoryevich Gagarin was celebrated in Moscow.

Representatives of the Church, state authorities, public organizations, relatives and friends of Prince Gagarin and many members of the Russian Nobility Assembly gathered to congratulate the hero of the day.

On behalf of the Russian Orthodox Church The prince was congratulated by the Chairman of the Synodal Department for Relations between the Church and Society, Mitred Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, who presented His Excellency with the icon of the Holy Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna. Director of the Chancellery of the Head of the Russian Imperial House A.N. Zakatov read out congratulations to Prince Grigory Grigoryevich from the Empress Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna and announced the Decree on awarding the hero of the day with the Sign with the monogram image of the Name of the Head of the Russian Imperial House of the 1st degree. On behalf of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Prince Gagarin was congratulated by a group of generals headed by Lieutenant General A.Ya. Kolomeichenko. At the same time, the head of the Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense for perpetuating the memory of the defenders of the Fatherland, Major General A.V. Kirilin presented His Excellency with the medal "200 Years of the Ministry of Defense", which the prince was awarded for his active cooperation and interaction on the part of the RDS with Armed Forces Russia. The rector of the Russian State University of Trade and Economics (RGTEU), which is under the highest patronage, Professor S.N. Baburin announced the decision of the Academic Council of the university to award Prince Gagarin with the Golden Badge of Honor named after Nikolai Rumyantsev. First Deputy Director of the Russian State Military Historical and Cultural Center under the Government of the Russian Federation G.I. Kalchenko, congratulating the hero of the day, presented him with a commemorative government medal for his contribution to patriotic education youth.

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin congratulates Prince Gagarin

Professor S.N. Baburin congratulates Prince Grigory Grigorievich

Major General A.V. Kirilin congratulates His Excellency

There were congratulatory greetings from the Chairman of the Central Election Commission of Russia V.E. Churov and Chairman of the Committee of the State Duma of Russia on Public Associations and Religious Organizations S.A. Popov. Congratulations were delivered by the Deputy Head of the Office of the Public Chamber of Russia A.I. Kudryavtsev, Head of the Rossotrudnichestvo Department Yu.Yu. Didenko and others.

The comrades-in-arms of the Movement “For Faith and Fatherland”, headed by the Chairman of the Guiding Center K.R. Kasimovsky, Member of the Republican Center G.N. Grishin and confessor of the Movement Hieromonk Nikon (Levachev-Belavents), ranks of the Chancellery of the Head of the Russian Imperial House King of Arms S.V. Dumin and lawyer G.Yu. Lukyanov, head of the Moscow department of the Russian Imperial Union-Order A.A. Patriotic War of 1812, headed by the Chairman of the Society V.I. Alyavdin, General Director of the company "Partnership of A.I. Abrikosov's sons" D.P. Abrikosov, President of the Society of Friends of the State Historical Museum A.A. Bondarev, President of the Moscow Interdistrict Bar Association S.B. Zubkov, representatives of the priesthood and figures of the Russian Orthodox Church, members of the Rectorate of the RGTEU and others.

Chairman of the Leading Center of the Movement "For Faith and Fatherland" K.R. Kasimovsky and Member of the Guiding Center G.N. Grishin congratulate Prince Grigory Grigorievich

And, of course, Prince Grigory Grigoryevich was congratulated by a numerous deputation of the RDS, headed by the First Vice-Leader of the RDS A.Yu. Korolev-Pereleshin, including the Vice-Leader of the Moscow Nobility Assembly (MDS) Professor P.V. Florensky, Leader of the Bashkortostan Nobility Assembly - Mejlis of the Tatar Murzas Z.Ya. Ayupov, Leader of the Perm Nobility Assembly A.A. Posukhov, Deputy Director of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences V.M. Lavrov, head of the pilgrimage section of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society S.Yu. Zhitenev, leader of the youth section of the RDS M.M. Volkova and many, many others.

Press service of the Movement "For Faith and Fatherland" ( [email protected] )

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
ABOUT THE LEADER
RUSSIAN NOBLE ASSEMBLY

Prince Grigory Grigorievich G A G A R I N E

Prince Grigory Grigoryevich Gagarin - Rurikovich, a direct descendant of the Russian Grand Dukes Vladimir Monomakh, Yuri Dolgoruky, Vsevolod Big Nest. Born October 2, 1945 in the suburbs of Paris, Villejuive, in a family of Russian emigrants. Baptized in the suburbs of Paris, Clichy, in the Church of the Holy Trinity in December 1945 in the presence of parents, relatives and friends. Father - Prince Grigory Borisovich Gagarin (1908-1993), son of Major General Prince Boris Vladimirovich Gagarin (1876-1966), World War I hero, awarded the Order of St. George 4th class and the golden St. George weapon. Prince B.V. Gagarin in exile was the chairman of the Union Knights of St. George. Father of Prince G.G. Gagarina G.B. Gagarin first studied at Cadet Corps, then graduated from the University of Liege and worked as a mechanical engineer. During World War II, he was in the Army of General Charles de Gaulle, was in a combat unit, which was one of the first to land in France, and had a number of military awards.

Mother Maria Fedorovna Karpova (1910-1998) is a representative of a well-known noble family descended from Rurik. Her own grandfather is Gennady Fedorovich Karpov, famous historian, professor, after his death, a scholarship in his name was established at Moscow University for especially successful students. The mother of Prince G.G. Gagarin graduated from the Sorbonne and then worked as a class lady in a gymnasium in Paris. Mother was lucky to have H.I.V. Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich, who entered the senior class of this gymnasium to pass exams for a certificate. During World War II, she also participated in the French resistance movement.

The parents of Prince G.G. Gagarin had known each other since the 1930s. We met again in France, immediately after the liberation of Paris from German occupation in August 1944, they decided to get married and got married at the end of 1944 in the suburb of Paris, Clichy. After the end of the war and the birth of their son, the parents of G.G. Gagarin, following the example of a significant part of the Russian emigration, wanted to return to their homeland in Russia. The mother of Grigory Grigoryevich especially insisted on this. However, the father of Grigory Grigoryevich, having become acquainted by this time with the methods of work of the Soviet special services, who tried, through pressure and intimidation, to involve him in work with internees, realized what was waiting for him in the Soviet Union and changed his mind about returning to Russia under the communist regime. Grigory Grigoryevich's mother, however, did not agree with him and insisted on returning. There was a serious quarrel and the family broke up. Father G.G. Gagarin later lived and died in England. The mother of Grigory Grigoryevich married Grigory Erastovich Tulubyev (1897-1960) by a second marriage, hereditary nobleman, former Guards officer, participant white movement, who fought in the White Army with the rank of staff captain. From this marriage, in 1948, the half-brother of Prince Grigory Grigorievich Gagarin, Andrey Grigorievich Tulubyev, was born.

A few years after the end of the war, Grigory Grigoryevich, together with his mother and stepfather, first moved to the German Democratic Republic, and then to Russia. They expected to settle in one of the capitals, but they were sent to the city of Troitsk, Chelyabinsk Region, on the border with Kazakhstan. The stepfather raised and raised Grigory Grigoryevich as his own son, never making a difference between him and his half-brother.

Prince G.G. Gagarin has two higher educations. In 1964 he entered the Chelyabinsk Polytechnic Institute, where he graduated from the Faculty of Civil Engineering in 1971 and was left to work at the department. Since that time he lived in Chelyabinsk. In 1993 he graduated from the Mining Faculty of the All-Union Correspondence Polytechnic Institute in Moscow. Worked as a researcher at the Chelyabinsk Polytechnic Institute (1971–1986), head of a laboratory at the South Ural Trust for Engineering and Construction Surveys (1986–1992), chief specialist of the Spetszhelezobetonproekt design and technology institute (1992–2001), chief specialist of the building survey department and facilities at OOO South Ural Regional Technical Center Prombezopasnost (2001–2006).

Since 2007 - Head of the Department of Technical Development of Production, an expert in the inspection of buildings and structures of CJSC Uralspetsenergoremont-Holding. Since 2009 - Investment and Construction Advisor to the Rector of the Russian State University of Trade and Economics (Moscow).

In 1999, he applied for membership in the Russian Nobility Assembly (RDS). Accepted as a full member of the RDS, with an entry in the 5th part of the RDS Pedigree Book (diploma No. 2173). Even before the final entry into the RDS, Prince G.G. Gagarin began to organize the Chelyabinsk Regional Nobility Assembly, which he created in 1999 and, with some difficulty, was officially registered in early 2005 as a regional branch of the RDS. All these years (until 2009 inclusive) he was invariably the leader of the Chelyabinsk Nobility Assembly. Delegate of the 8th, 10th, 11th and 12th All-Russian Nobility Congresses. In May 2005, he was elected to the Council of the United Nobility, since that time he has actively participated in all meetings of the Council.

In August 2007, Grigory Grigoryevich was introduced to the Head of the Russian Imperial House H.I.V. Empress Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna. The candidacy of Prince G.G. Gagarin, as a possible future leader of the RDS, was approved by the Highest.

At the reporting and election 12th All-Russian Nobility Congress in May 2008, he was elected Leader of the Russian Nobility Assembly.

Prince G.G. Gagarin actively supported and continued the public-civil and cultural-educational activities of the RDS, which the organization had carried out in all previous years. After being elected the Leader of the RDS, he personally heads most of the programs and projects of the RDS.

Since 2008, he has been participating in the preparation and conduct of visits to Russia by the Head and Members of the Russian Imperial House, in the implementation of actions aimed at integrating the Russian Imperial House into the life of our Fatherland.

Since 2010, Prince G.G. Gagarin is a member of the Council of Orthodox Public Associations under the Synodal Department for Relations between the Church and Society.

Awards:
- Russian Imperial House: Order of St. Anne, 2nd class (2009);
- Foreign: Order of Honor of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (2009); medal "20 years of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic" (2010), medal "600 years of the city of Bendery" of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (2009).
- Russian Nobility Assembly: medal of honor (2nd degree, 2008) of the honorary award "In memory of the creation of the Union of Descendants of the Russian Nobility - the Russian Nobility Assembly".

Prince G.G. Gagarin is married. His wife, Princess Valentina Oskarovna, née Bidlingmeier, comes from a family of German settlers in the Caucasus (born in 1948 in Kazakhstan), the wife's parents left for permanent residence in Germany in the late 1980s. The only daughter of Prince Grigory Grigorievich, Princess Maria Grigorievna, was born in 1972 in Chelyabinsk, graduated from a university in Germany, in Stuttgart, married to a German citizen, has a daughter, Anna (born in 2008).

Oleg Shcherbachev: It is not only possible, but also necessary, to be proud of the glory of our ancestors...

Interview of the Leader of the Russian Nobility Assembly, the Leader of the Moscow Nobility Assembly Oleg Vyacheslavovich Shcherbachev to the columnist of the federal weekly Rossiyskie Vesti.

To the 25th anniversary of the revival of the Russian Nobility Assembly

It seemed that after the revolution, the nobility in Russia was finally and irrevocably destroyed in Stalin's camps, the dungeons of the Lubyanka, disappeared in the "great dispersion" of emigration ... The nobles who remained in Russia at that troubled time buried St. George's crosses, Annas and Stanislavs, with with tears in their eyes, they burned family albums with photographs of grandfathers in uniforms and grandmothers in evening dresses, tore up church records and letters of nobility ...

With the fall of the Soviet regime, they started talking about the revival of cultural and historical traditions, the restoration of the lost continuity of generations, it became possible to remember their roots, ancestors ... And it turned out that they could not completely destroy the nobility - in Russia there were still nobles who were born before the revolution, during many families preserved the memory of noble ancestors, family seals and family traditions were preserved ... On May 10, 1990, the All-Russian public organization "Union of Descendants of the Russian Nobility - Russian Nobility Assembly" was created in Moscow (abbreviated name - Russian Nobility Assembly, RDS).

Since then, a quarter of a century has passed ... About the plans that came true and those that did not come true, about what the Russian noble corporation lives today, the columnist for Rossiyskiye Vesti talked with the Leader of the Russian Nobility Assembly, the Leader of the Moscow Nobility Assembly Oleg Vyacheslavovich Shcherbachev.

First of all, I want to congratulate you on the 25th anniversary of the revival of the Russian Noble Society. How justified the hopes with which it was created, what has been done over the years? I would like to know what the nobility corporation represents today and what is its size?

Thank you for your congratulations! Of course, for the centuries-old history of the Russian nobility, twenty-five years is a very short period of time, but for us this is a very significant date ... Let's remember how it all began ... At the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, our country experienced a very interesting, turning point. Indeed, at that time there were many hopes and illusions, various parties, movements, public organizations, and foundations arose and disappeared without a trace. The Russian Nobility Assembly, which was revived on May 10, 1990, is still active and, I am sure, with God's help it will exist for a long time to come. I think that after 10 or 20 years, it would be much more difficult to revive the Nobility Assembly. After all, at that time people born in the Russian Empire were still alive, they remembered it, they remembered the horrors of the Red Terror, the executions of relatives, prisons, exiles, camps, hardships. They stood at its origins, gave it a moral and religious basis.

Now they like to say: Russia is a great country with a common history... The country is certainly great, and the history is great, but at the same time tragic and catastrophic. And one of the main tasks of the Russian Noble Assembly is to testify to this history, which we have been doing all these 25 years, publishing books, newspapers, almanacs, studying scientific work by holding conferences. A lot has been done in this field. I would especially like to note the book series “Forgotten and Unknown Russia” (the authors of the project are S.A. Sapozhnikov, one of those who stood at the origins of our organization, now the honorary leader of the Moscow Nobility Assembly, and V.A. Blagovo). To date, more than 100 books have been published on various aspects of Russian history, the White movement, and emigration. The series is available in all major libraries, not only in our country, but also abroad. In my opinion, this is already something to be proud of.

Today, the Russian Nobility Assembly is an all-Russian public organization with 70 branches operating in the regions of the Russian Federation, and practically throughout the entire territory of the historical Russian state. In this sense, it is also, one might say, a unique association. A sacramental question about the number ... I will not dissemble, there are not very many of us: about four and a half thousand (with family members - about 12,000). According to my estimates, this is no more than 2-3% of those who could join us.

This begs the question: where are the other 98%?

There may be several reasons for this. First, the applicant to our organization must submit a convincing chain of documents. Some people are afraid of it. I understand perfectly well that most of the nobles who passed through the Soviet ice rink did not have any documents left. Thank God we managed to survive. So, you need to request archives. To some, this may seem difficult, if not hopeless. Those who are not afraid of difficulties are rewarded a hundredfold: they learned what they did not suspect. Family genealogy - interesting science. We try to help everyone who comes to us, whether it is a descendant of the nobility or other classes, because even Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin said: “It is not only possible, but also necessary, to be proud of the glory of our ancestors; to disrespect it is shameful cowardice...

Do not forget the fact that for more than seventy years they have tried to exterminate historical memory or pervert it. A “bright future” loomed ahead, and behind - the “dark Middle Ages”, “prison of peoples”, “reactionary tsarist regime"... Some stamps have already been forgotten, but don't flatter yourself. The disease of historical amnesia is fraught with relapses.

Another reason why not everyone was in a hurry to join the Assembly of Nobles was rather banal: fear. And it's hard to blame someone here: people have experienced such that after that you can be silent for life, so as not to harm children, grandchildren, loved ones! The result is a tree without roots. And now such victims of fear and silence come, and there is no one to ask them ...

I'm glad they're coming. It may be that the flow of people wishing to join the Assembly is now a little less than in the early 1990s, but, all the same, people are drawn to tradition, to the origins of our culture, to enduring moral values, to the concepts of honor, service, duty. And we try to help them find their story.

You mentioned such concepts as honor and duty. Obviously, they cannot be forcibly instilled in a person, they are brought up by generations, like patriotism or Christian morality, which was absorbed with mother's milk. Did at least part of society manage to preserve these values ​​during the years of Soviet power, when the word "nobleman" was mentioned only as a swear word?

The concept of honor, especially noble honor, is very subtle. In Russia, it was formed in the XVIII - XIX centuries. In pre-Petrine Rus', there were completely different ideas about honor. And although the image of a knight is, of course, of Christian origin, one should not forget that it was honor that pushed many noblemen to actions that were spectacular, but not at all Christian. In the 19th century, the aristocracy in Russia was certainly not atheistic, but I would venture to say that religion was not the core of its life. The fruits of this "Petersburg religion" turned out to be tragic, and the depth of "folk Orthodoxy" in many respects turned out to be an illusion. Therefore, oddly enough, it was the 20th century that became the century of the return of nobles and intellectuals to the temple. In exile, the Church became a real center of crystallization of Russian life in exile. And in Soviet Russia the clergy and the nobility turned out to be brothers in misfortune, outcasts and "dispossessed". Suffering requires reflection and justification, and outside of Christianity it is impossible. Long before 1990, the parishes of Elijah Obydenny, Nikola in Kuznetsy, Resurrection of the Word in Bryusov Lane became a kind of "Moscow noble assembly". When the "colossus" collapsed, and we witnessed the miracle of the revival of the Russian Orthodox Church, this revival began, mind you, with the urban intelligentsia.

And now about patriotism. What kind of patriotism should be in Solovki, in Karlag, or even in the cramped room of a Moscow communal apartment left after the “condensation”? But love for the motherland is an indestructible feeling. Just understanding the motherland is deeply individual. Both in the Soviet Union and in the diaspora, the Russian nobleman was doomed to love his Fatherland in much the same way as Israel "on the rivers of Babylon." Of course, someone mimicked, someone assimilated, but someone remained faithful to that Russia, which his fathers and grandfathers once swore allegiance to and served, and, if necessary, went to his death.

The nobility in Russia appeared as a "serving" class, obliged to prove its loyalty to the sovereign - the Grand Duke, Tsar, Emperor by service. This is how the clan and caste backbone of the noble corporation was laid. Today, historical and political conditions have changed. Has the internal connection between the current representatives of the nobility and the descendants of Russian emperors been preserved?

Undoubtedly. Without respect for the historical dynasty and its legitimate Head, a full-fledged noble worldview is unthinkable. After all, our ancestors served the sovereigns of the Romanov dynasty for centuries. Already in the first year of the existence of the Russian Noble Assembly, its contacts began with the then Head of the Russian Imperial House, Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich, who, one might say, blessed our activities, signed the first Charter of the Noble Assembly. I consider this very important and symbolic: a man who was born in 1917 on the territory of the Russian Empire, lived his entire life in exile, and who for more than 50 years carried this heavy cross, this mission. The Grand Duke still happened to set foot on the land of his ancestors, on the day when the capital of the Russian Empire regained its historical name. Less than a year later, he passed away. A truly beautiful destiny, a truly legendary personality.

The Imperial House exists and will continue to exist... Today its Head is the daughter of Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich - Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna. Call it a parallel reality, but anyway, the dynasty is a reality: legal, historical, sacred.
In the history of the Church, it happened more than once when a part of the hierarchy, and even a large part, veered into heresy. The mystical body of the Church is indestructible. And on earth, as long as at least one ordained bishop is alive, the apostolic succession continues. A dynasty is also a succession sanctified by law and the Church.

It must be said that the Russian Nobility Assembly did a lot for the return and reintegration of the Russian Imperial House into the public life of modern Russia, especially in the 1990s. The first visits of the current Head of the dynasty, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, were organized with the direct and active participation of the Russian Nobility Assembly and its leadership. It is also useful to recall this in the year of the 25th anniversary of the Assembly as one of the most important practical results of its activities.

The Empress Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna has publicly stated more than once that she is not going to enter into a political struggle in any form ... What is the attitude towards the policy of the Russian Nobility Assembly?

You are right, the head of the dynasty has repeatedly stated that she is not involved in politics. This is a fundamental position. A dynasty should unite, not divide. And this is also the principled position of the Russian Nobility Assembly. As a private individual, any nobleman, of course, has the right to join one party or another. But, as a public organization, as a class corporation, the Assembly of the Nobility was and remains out of politics. Which does not mean - out of public life. On the contrary, both the Russian Imperial House and the Russian Nobility Assembly are simply obliged to participate in the formation of civil society, its value orientations, to stand guard over its moral principles, to cultivate a cultural field.

How are the relations of the noble community with the Russian Orthodox Church?

I think, like all normal Orthodox people... For the Russian Assembly of the Nobility, the Russian Orthodox Church is one of the main moral authorities. But at the same time, I must emphasize that the nobility in the Russian Empire was multinational and multi-confessional. It remains so today. There are Catholics, Lutherans, and Muslims in the Assembly of Nobility. The Russian Empire was able, singling out Orthodoxy as the state religion, to preserve national characteristics the peoples included in it. Christianization, of course, was carried out, but quite skillfully and gently - in comparison with the "liberal" West, the same America, the religious policy of Russia was the height of tolerance. The Orthodox monarch was sincerely loved by the "white king" for all his subjects.

The re-establishment of the Assembly of the Nobility in modern Russia almost coincided in time with the revival of the Russian Orthodox Church. Of course, we understand that we are in different "weight categories", but we cannot but realize both the inextricable historical connection and the duty of cooperation. The late His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, who, let me remind you, was born in exile in Tallinn, and descended from the noble family of the Ridigers, was our honorary member and did a lot for the Nobility Assembly, especially at the stage of its formation. With the current Primate, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, the Nobility Assembly also has strong respectful filial bonds. As well as with many other hierarchs and clergymen.

In order to better acquaint the Moscow public, including members of the Assembly of Nobility, with true church life, with real representatives, so to speak, of the second estate, I recently launched the project “Estonia. Dialogue with a priest. And, I want to say, what a gallery of wonderful Moscow priests passed before us - smart, educated, versatile, deep and interesting interlocutors!

I repeat, the nobility and the clergy are called to be co-workers in the field of the revival of historical Russia. So it is today, and I hope it will be so in the future...

Representatives of the noble class faithfully served the Fatherland for generations ... During the Patriotic War of 1812, the Crimean campaign, the First World War, aristocratic youth voluntarily went to the front line, it was considered shameful to sit in the rear. It's hard to imagine this today. What, in your opinion, is the reason for the decline in patriotic feeling, the loss of moral guidelines, the sudden appearance of the ideals of a “consumer society”, etc.?

I don’t like it when they manipulate the absolutely vague term “national elite”. Who is this elite really? Senior officials? Oligarchs? Businessmen from culture? Bandits who profited from crime and privatization? It is difficult for me to agree that this is the Russian elite, especially if it keeps its capital in offshore and Swiss banks, and its offspring study in England - and not at all in order to return to their homeland with the acquired knowledge. These are nouveau riches. The real elite is formed not in five or even twenty-five years, but in generations and centuries.

The main task of the real Russian elite has always been serving the Fatherland. During the war of 1812, representatives of all aristocratic families were in the army, during great war the first to die were officers of the guard, who considered it beneath their dignity to bend under machine-gun fire. The elite of a society ceases to be such as soon as it opposes itself to this society. Despite the different social status, wealth, level of education, people should have single system values. In the 19th century, it was brilliantly formulated by Count S.S. Uvarov. God, Tsar, Fatherland - with these words, both the Grand Dukes and the peasants lived and died, together they made up great Russia. In this connecting beginning, the fundamental difference between estates and classes, groups, strata, and even now fashionable strata.

Why not now? Well, why should we be like this, after more than 70 years of communist ideology, built on the principles of atheism and proletarian internationalism? The Bolsheviks came to power on national betrayal, retained this power through national betrayal (remember the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk) and brought up traitors, it is enough to name the phenomenon of Pavlik Morozov, the epidemic of denunciation that raged at that time. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, when a critical situation developed at the front, the official ideology had to be adjusted. Stalin remembered the names of Suvorov, Kutuzov, Nakhimov. But I would not flatter myself about the sincerity of this "turn", about which they now like to speculate.

Speaking of patriotism, one should not forget one important nuance, namely, that patriotism is love, love for the Motherland. But all love is waiting for reciprocal love. As for the current state, on the one hand, it abandoned the communist ideology, but, on the other hand, it did not recognize itself as the legal successor of historical Russia. This duality creates a value relativism, a "split of consciousness", which, obviously, does not contribute to the rise of patriotic feelings.

Maybe toponymy, symbolism is not the most important thing in this world, but you must admit that this is something that eats into our consciousness, sits on its subcortex. And although the Royal Passion-Bearers have long been glorified, Muscovites are forced to pass through the Voykovskaya station every day. Cleared images of the Savior Not Made by Hands and St. Nicholas the Wonderworker on the Kremlin towers crowned with five-pointed stars, and next to it lies the unburied body of the "eternally living" destroyer of Russia.

What, in your opinion, can serve as the basis of a national idea that can unite the disunited and largely morally disoriented Russian people?

We must understand that it is impossible to come up with a national idea. It is nurtured by the people - I repeat these words again - for generations and centuries. In addition, there is the concept of historical and religious vocation. As a person, so the people have their own cross. Attempts to reject it, to turn off the predestined path with God, are catastrophic. Russia was not just a monarchy for a thousand years, the majority of European states were monarchies. Russia itself, perhaps unwillingly, took over from Byzantium the mission of the Christian empire, the Third Rome. And thus she predetermined her fate. Like it or not, we must admit that we are an empire. And the Christian empire demands, of course, a Christian emperor, an anointed one.

I am not saying that in the 21st century it should be an absolute monarch, especially since by 1917 our monarchy was far from absolute. I'm talking about the monarch as a symbol of the nation. I may be asked the question: how is he, in fact, different from the president? Usually they answer this way: by the dynastic principle. Of course, this is a very important difference. When the heir to the throne is brought up from childhood as a future monarch, responsible for the fate of his country, which his ancestors have been improving since the founding of the state, and which he will then entrust to his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, this guarantees stability and continuity.

But I would like to focus on the religious aspect. Have you ever thought about how priests, ordinary Russian priests who confess their sins almost daily, manage to endure all this calmly and not go crazy? After all, they are not professional psychiatrists, psychologists, psychoanalysts, who, by the way, break down much more often. For a religious person, the answer is obvious: the power of grace inherent in the gift of the priesthood... But after all, the hereditary monarch, by duty and right, receives a special, sacred gift in the sacrament of secondary chrismation. It is he who gives him the strength to bear the burden of power.

Almost a million Russian people belonging to the nobility, after the revolution, ended up in exile. Have contacts with emigrant noble assemblies been restored today?

The oldest organization of the Russian nobility - the Union de la Noblesse Russe - was created in Paris in 1925 from representatives of the provincial noble assemblies who were forced to leave their homeland. When the Russian Noble Assembly was formed in 1990, then, of course, contacts immediately began with this “Parisian” Union of Nobles. It could not be otherwise, because after the catastrophe of 1917, many families were separated by the "Iron Curtain". But one should not think that everything turned out so rosy. For a Russian emigrant, could there be anything good from the Soviet Union, even if it was the Assembly of the Nobility? But time heals, and gradually the wounds heal. Despite some differences in our statutes, good relations have developed between the organizations on the whole. An important milestone was 2013, when the delegation of the Union of Nobles, headed by its then chairman Kirill Vladimirovich Kiselevsky (alas, recently deceased), at the invitation of the Moscow Nobility Assembly, participated in a large program prepared by us dedicated to the 400th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty. In the house " Russian Abroad”An evening from the cycle“ Goodbye, Russia - hello, Russia! ”, Dedicated to the Union of Nobles, was held - this was, in fact, our first joint action.

I have no doubt that our contacts will develop in the future as well. I also want to note that in some countries the Russian nobility was not united in any organizations, and they arose only in the 1990s already as branches of the Russian Nobility Assembly. So it was in Australia, in Bulgaria.

In the domestic press, it is customary to savor juicy details about the weddings of European crowned heads with emotion. At the same time, outright lies are often written about the current Russian Imperial House and all sorts of gossip is spread. How do you assess this trend?

To be honest, I don't see much difference between gossip and juicy details - it all fits into the general style of our modern press. Of course, I perfectly understand what you are talking about. The implication is this: there, in the West, monarchies are beautiful and good, but here, in Russia, this is absurd and atavistic. The question is why? Why, for example, the restoration of the monarchy in Spain is positive and relevant, while in Russia it is served with sauce: do you want to return the palaces to yourself? And maybe also serfdom in addition? Moreover, the Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna does not tire of repeating that she is against restitution and, moreover, does not claim the property of the dynasty.

Attacks on the Head of the Russian Imperial House are most often based on emotional and sometimes absurd arguments. No matter how much you refute them, they still pop up later and are presented as a sensation. What can be said here? It is pointless to explain anything to a person who does not want to understand. But it is necessary to methodically and honestly write the history of the Imperial House in exile, publish archival documents, photographs, letters - for thinking people.

On the Internet, you can find ads that guarantee the awarding of a "royal" order or a princely title for a certain amount. Do these proposals have anything to do with the Imperial House or the Assembly of Nobility?

Believe me, all such offers are pure fraud. Genuine awards are not bought on the Internet or in any other way, but are received for services to the state, the Church, the dynasty that has retained its historical identity. Only in this case, these are full-fledged awards, not trinkets.

The dynastic orders established by European monarchs in past epochs are preserved by the current heads of the crowned dynasties, even in the event of the loss of state power. Orders are bestowed by the Heads of the Italian, French, Portuguese and many other non-reigning dynasties. The list of dynastic orders published by the International Commission of Cavalier Orders and other authoritative scientific societies also includes the Russian imperial orders of the Romanov dynasty. The right to award imperial orders and bestow noble dignity is an inalienable historical prerogative of the Head of the Russian Imperial House. At present, imperial orders, as well as orders of the Russian Orthodox Church, do not have state status, and their awarding does not entail any privileges. They are only an honorary sign of respect and gratitude from the Russian Imperial House. I note that many well-known public figures, military leaders, clergy, people of culture are holders of imperial orders.

Is the current interest in the search for noble ancestors a kind of fashion - for many it is prestigious to have their own coat of arms, pedigree?

Prestigious and fashionable - not always bad. The bad thing is that fashion passes. And genealogy must be rooted in the people's consciousness. Peoples who honor their history, their traditions, cannot fail to know and respect their ancestors. We talked about patriotism. Through the history of one's family, one's own ancestors, the history of the country becomes close and dear - and isn't this the basis for true patriotism? Whoever your ancestors were - nobles, peasants, merchants, clergy - they are all worthy of memory, they all worked for the good of Russia. The main thing is that the passion for genealogy and heraldry should not lead to the temptation to rewrite history, in this case, your family history, the history of the family. If such a temptation touches someone's souls, let them think about the fact that fictional ancestors will not be able to pray for them ...

But my deep conviction is that there is also a religious aspect to genealogy. We are all descendants of Adam, a branch of a single human race. This understanding runs throughout the Bible. Open New Testament. Where does it start? From the genealogy of Jesus Christ.

We continue to publish materials about the little-known pages of the life and way of life of the Russian people. Today we will talk about the current situation of the Russian aristocracy - the descendants of the pre-revolutionary nobility.

There are four and a half thousand people in the Russian Nobility Assembly

Tell us about the activities of the Russian Nobility Assembly. Does the status of "nobleman" exist today, and in what form?

Although the history of noble assemblies in Russia should be counted from Catherine the Great's charter of 1785, the Noble Assembly, as a public organization in modern Russia, was formed in 1990. On May 10, 1990, about 50 people, mostly members of a certain friendly circle, gathered in Moscow and established the Union of descendants of the Russian nobility – Russian Nobility Assembly” (this is our full name). Let me remind you that there was still in the yard Soviet Union with the leading role of the CPSU. Actually, it wasn't that scary anymore. perestroika», « Gorbachev”, etc., but still a certain courage of these pioneers must be given credit. Remember, the following year there was an August coup, and God knows how the country's development would have gone if it had succeeded.

The fact that the Nobility Assembly arose in Moscow was read by my grandmother in " Evening”, and I literally went to register the next day. This was my reaction and the reaction of many hundreds of people who seemed to be waiting for this moment, for others it was more expectant. Nevertheless, in the 1990-1991s, a very noticeable flow of people reached out to us. VOOPIIK(The All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments) provided us with a small room in the former Znamensky Monastery on Varvarka (then it was still called Stepan Razin). And sometimes we took in the bell tower. So, I remember, there was a queue for each of the 4-5 genealogists who were receiving. Then the flow became a little less, but never dried up. It doesn't stop even now. Today, the Russian Nobility Assembly consists of about four and a half thousand people. Is it a lot or a little? Rather, not enough. Because this is hardly more than 2-3% of those who could join us. The question of Christ comes to mind:

Haven't ten been cleansed, where are the nine?

Unfortunately, both at the beginning of the era and now, people very quickly forget what they should remember. Good to remember. Causes? On the one hand, for more than 70 years of Soviet power, executions, persecutions, exiles, camps and total fear in many noble families, the tradition was literally interrupted - there was simply no one left who could pass it on. Therefore, now there are a large number of nobles who are sincerely unaware of their origin.

Another situation - a person knows that he is a nobleman, but the family spoke about it in a whisper, with an eye to the walls that have ears. And this fear has so entered into the flesh, blood and subconsciousness of post-Soviet people that it has become psychologically impossible for many to declare themselves a nobleman. Several people told me exactly the same story. The older generation, having learned that their children or grandchildren had joined the Nobility Assembly, took their heads in horror:

You are crazy! We'll all be shot!

There is also a third reason. Many believe that since we live in the 21st century, the nobility is a page turned long ago, it is somehow ridiculous and absurd to recall this. It's like putting on a top hat or fanning yourself with a fan. Yes, I know that I'm a nobleman, that's all, no one else needs to know this, Well, maybe I'll tell the children - so, as a joke. This is a very common reaction.

There is another typical excuse, typical mainly for the descendants of aristocratic families. “Why should I join? Whether I am a member of the Assembly of Nobility or not, I am Prince Trubetskoy and will remain Prince Trubetskoy. I know my ancestors, it is important for me, but it is indecent to boast of origin in front of others. Why, one wonders, before 1917, being a member of the Assembly of Nobility was considered natural for a nobleman and was not associated with pride in any way?

And finally, perhaps the most important reason is laziness. Forcing people to apply to the archive, go to the registry office, rummage through their own family documents is sometimes an absolutely impossible task. In part, of course, I can understand these people: they do not have enough money to live, there are a lot of problems around, and here they are also forced to go somewhere, write something and even pay for something. At the same time, the Noble Assembly throughout the years of its existence provided free methodological assistance and helped in finding the necessary documents.

And yet there were also lazy ones. As a result, now the Russian Nobility Assembly consists of 70 regional branches, scattered not only throughout the modern Russian Federation from Koenigsberg to Sakhalin and from Petrozavodsk to the Crimea and Kuban, but throughout the entire territory of the Russian Empire, including Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Baltic countries and Transcaucasia. Several branches also appeared in foreign countries - in Australia, Bulgaria, California. As I said, approximately 4,500 people are currently members of the Assembly. Of course, more entered, many have, alas, died. We often say - and we do not sin against the truth - that there are about 15 thousand of us with family members. These are descendants of both the male and female lines. The former are full members of the Assembly (and, in the legal sense, nobles), the latter are associate members.

From the point of view of issues of restitution, it is absolutely the same, the inheritance of property goes along any line. From the point of view of the nobility's legislation, this is wrong, we understand this very well and deliberately went for this wrongness, because after 70 years of the Soviet "skating rink" it was impossible to do otherwise. Indeed, often the tradition of the nobility was transmitted precisely through mothers and grandmothers, because fathers and grandfathers died in the revolution or civil war died in exile, in prisons, camps. Agree that men die more often than women, and it is women who then pass on the tradition to their children and grandchildren.

If we ignore the women's line, then it will not only be unfair, but we will also lose a large share of the most valuable information. Some births in the male knee completely stopped during the years of Soviet power, and if we say: “ we are not interested in you, you are not nobles”, then we will lose a huge layer of documents, which from a historical point of view is simply criminal.

Rurikovich is not as small as it might seem

Name several known genera, whose representatives are now alive.

These are Counts Bobrinskys - direct descendants of Catherine II and Grigory Orlov, princes Gagarins, Trubetskoys, Obolenskys, Volkonskys, Khovanskys, many princes Golitsyns, Counts Sheremetevs, Tolstoy and Tolstoy-Miloslavskys, Apraksins, Tatishchevs, Efimovskys, Kamenskys, Komarovskys, noblemen Naryshkins, Lopukhins .

No Yusupovs?

There are no Yusupovs in principle. The princes Yusupovs were cut short in the male knee at the end of the 19th century. The daughter of the last Prince Yusupov, Zinaida Nikolaevna, having married Count Sumarokov-Elston, by the Highest Decree gave him her last name, and they began to be called Princes Yusupovs, Counts Sumarokov-Elston. Moreover, only the eldest representative of the family was called Prince Yusupov. The famous Felix Feliksovich Yusupov, the killer of Rasputin, the son of Zinaida Nikolaevna, had a brother - Nikolai Feliksovich, he was simply called Count Sumarokov-Elston. Nicholas had no children (he died in a duel very young), and Felix Feliksovich from Nicholas II's niece, Irina Alexandrovna, had only a daughter, Irina, who died in 1983. Now her daughter Xenia Nikolaevna Sfiris, nee Countess Sheremeteva, is alive, but the Yusupov princes are no more.

If we ignore the princes and counts, then in the Nobility Assembly there are many representatives of the old untitled surnames: Aksakovs, Bezobrazovs, Beklemishevs, Berdyaevs, Bibikovs, Verderevskys, Vorontsov-Velyaminovs, Glinka, Golenishchev-Kutuzovs, Golovins, Grigorovs, Dolivo-Dobrovolskys, Zagryazhskys, Karamzins , Kvashnins-Samarins, Korsakovs, Lopatins, Nakhimovs, Olenins, Olsufyevs, Olferyevs, Osorgins, Ofrosimovs, Passeki, Pereleshins, Raevskys, Rzhevskys, Skaryatins, Khitrovo, Khrushchovs, Chebyshevs, Chelishchevs, Chichagovs ... Of course, there are many Polish gentry, there are Georgian families and the Baltic Germans - von Essen, von Bergi, von Vietinghoff. In Russia, unlike Western Europe, there were not so many titled families, about 1%, in the west this percentage is much higher, thanks to the once branched feudal system that existed.

Are there any descendants of the Rurikoviches and Gediminoviches in the world now?

Certainly. The princes Golitsyn, Trubetskoy, Khovansky, already mentioned by me, are the Gediminoviches. Of the Rurikids, these are the princes Gagarins, Volkonskys, Khilkovs, Vadbolskys, the untitled Karpovs and Counts Tatishchevs. Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Shakhovskoy - leader of the Union of Russian Nobles in Paris.

In general, there are not so few Rurikovichs as it might seem. IN South America the princes Gorchakov live, in France the Beloselsky-Belozersky, in England the Lobanov-Rostovsky. There are a lot of Obolensky princes. The second leader of the Russian Nobility Assembly was Prince Andrei Sergeevich Obolensky.

And what kind do you belong to?

To the Shcherbachev family, as follows from my last name. This is the sixth part of the noble family tree of the book of the Kaluga province, the pillar nobility, that is, relatively ancient - the family is 500 years old. In general, the usual Russian kind. According to legend, he comes from a native of the Golden Horde, but in reality - from Dmitry Shcherbach, who served as an interpreter at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries. In the Time of Troubles, my direct ancestor, the voivode Przemysl, accepted a crucified death from " thieves and Cossacks» Ivan Bolotnikov. And in 1613, one of the Shcherbachevs signed a letter of election to the kingdom of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov.

But, of course, the most famous representative of our family was Adjutant General Dmitry Grigorievich Shcherbachev, commander of the Romanian Front in the First world war- it can be found in literally all encyclopedias.

Estate marriages - a rare phenomenon

Tell me, how does the aristocracy live in other countries, for example, in France? I heard that the Western aristocracy exists in a very closed regime. Any attempts of modern nouveaux riches to join this society are suppressed.

What you describe is quite consistent with the situation in France and the UK. In general, in Great Britain, the nobility as an institution is fully operational. When you become the eldest of the family, you are a lord and sit in the House of Lords. Yes, in England, as far as I know, there are a number of societies where you cannot enter for any money unless someone takes you there.

There are several noble societies in Italy. Some spend more or less open events. For example, the ball "Il cento e non piu cento", that is, "A hundred and a little not a hundred" in Casale Monferrato (Piedmont). Its history goes back to the distant Middle Ages, when the city was engulfed in a war between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie. Finally, they managed to agree that a ball would be held as a sign of reconciliation, to which one hundred people from the aristocracy and one hundred from the bourgeoisie would come, but on the eve of the ball, someone unexpectedly died ...

This ball was remembered in the 19th century, it was revived, and since then it has been held annually. Both the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy are invited there - mainly, of course, Italian, but also from all over the world. As for the Russian Nobility Assembly, we have not only balls, but almost all events are open.

Is there a dress code for balls?

Of course, there is a dress code: Black Tie, that is, a tuxedo for men, a long dress for women. No wigs or other frills. There are sometimes masquerade balls, but quite rarely. Remember " War and peace”, the first ball of Natasha Rostova. How were the characters in the novel dressed? In the clothes that existed in their era, and not the way they dressed, for example, under Peter I or Ivan the Terrible.

In honor of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty, there was a historical ball in costumes from the era of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich. But it was a very special, unique ball. The last thing we would like is for the ball to be museumified. In our opinion, ballroom culture should be a part of life - that's exactly what it was in Russia in the 19th century.

But are there families or people who are trying to arrange dynastic marriages, when they are looking for suitors from a noble family for their daughters?

This is a hot topic. The late Count Nikolai Nikolaevich Bobrinsky, the first chairman of the Admission Committee of the Nobility Assembly, told me, then still very young: “ One of the goals of the Nobility Assembly should be the conclusion of class marriages". I was a little surprised back then. It should be noted that several such marriages were concluded in the Assembly of the Nobility. But if we talk about statistics, then, unfortunately, these are exceptions to the rule. So this mission, in my opinion, has not yet been completed.

Abroad, the situation is not much better. In recent years, even in the royal dynasties, there has been a tendency to enter into non-dynastic marriages. This game of pseudo-democracy does not at all benefit the monarchist idea; on the contrary, it destroys it. Thank God, the situation is better in lower dynasties. Especially in Germany. There are many princely families, including mediatized ones (with dynastic status), which follow the tradition and enter into equal marriages.

If we talk about France, then there the revolution happened a very long time ago, and, in addition to the nobility, what can be called “ old bourgeoisie". If not for the revolution of 1917, then in Russia we would have revered bourgeois families, such as the Morozovs, Ryabushinskys, Tretyakovs and others.

Today, Russian nobles are not involved in politics

What role could the descendants of nobles play in the development of our society and state?

Legitimate question. The Noble Assembly should exist not only for itself. Although this is also important. When people came to the Nobility Assembly in the 1990s, they felt an amazing, unique atmosphere, it seemed to them that they had returned to their home, to their relatives. Don't they deserve it?

I remember Irina Vladimirovna Trubetskaya, who spent almost half of her life in exile and camps. She smoked Belomor, but from the first glance at her one could understand that in front of you was a real aristocrat, she had such a core, such an inspired face. For the sake of bringing such people together, it made sense to create a Noble Assembly. The 1990s were quite cannibalistic, and we had an oasis where a person felt warm.

But you are absolutely right, the Assembly of the Nobility also feels its social mission. First of all, cultural and educational. At one time, the Assembly of the Nobility and its then vice-leader S. A. Sapozhnikov initiated, I think, a very successful book project " Russia forgotten and unknown”, within the framework of which more than 100 books were published on the history of the White movement, emigration, famous names and figures of the Russian Empire, such phenomena of Russian life as mercy and charity, etc. In addition, the Assembly of the Nobility holds scientific conferences on topical issues, most often in conjunction with reputable scientific organizations - the Russian State Library, the Historical Museum, the Institute Russian history etc.

We don't do politics. Why? The nobles are accustomed to what they do, to do well. In the 18th and 19th centuries, we managed to get involved in politics quite well, but now there are no prerequisites for this - and why are we going to get into it? I do not rule out that everything will change. History in our country is unpredictable. What matters is that we are. As long as we exist, we will bear witness to the thousand-year history of Russia, of the real Russia, which was not born in 1917 or 1991. This is our main task in the Russian Federation, which, according to the historian S. V. Volkov, “ not Russia yet».